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THE 
DOUBLE   GARDEN 


By  the  Same  Author: 

THE  TREASURE  OF  THE  HUMBLE.  Trans- 
lated by  Alfred  Sutro.     i2mo.    $1.75. 

WISDOM  AND  DESTINY.  Translated  by 
Alfred  Sutro.     ismo.    $1.75. 

THE  LIFE  OF  THE  BEE.  Translated  by 
Alfred  Sutro.     izmo.    tx.^onet. 

SISTER  BEATRICE  AND  ARDIANE  AND 
BARBE  BLEUE.  Translated  by  Bernard 
MiALL.     i2mo.     %\. 20  net. 

THE  BURIED  TEMPLE.  Translated  by  Alfred 
Sutro.      i2mo.     %\.4onet. 

THOUGHTS  FROM  MAETERLINCK.  Arranged 
by  E.  S.  S.     lamo.     $1.20  net. 

THE  DOUBLE  GARDEN.  Translated  by 
Alexander  Teixeira  de  Mattos.  i2mo. 
$1.40  net. 


The 
Double  Garden 


Bv 
MAURICE    MAETERLINCK 


Translated  by 
Alexander  Teixeira  de  Mattos 


I 


NEW   YORK 

DODD,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY 

1907 


p^ 


2  6^5 


A^ 


CopnticHT,  1903, 
Bt  Hakpbk  &  Bkothbks 

C0PT«I0HT,    190}, 

Br  Hakpbk  4  Brothbrs,  Thb  Cbmtubt  Co. 

Copyright,  1904, 

By  Maubicb  Mabtbrunck,  Harpbr  &  Brothers,  Thb  Century  Cio^ 

Thb  Ess  Ess  Publishimc  Co.,  Ainslbb's  Magazimb  Co. 


Copyright,  1904, 
By  Dodd,  Mbao  amd  Company 


Pmbliihed  May,  1904 


auKt  printimc  housb 

mW   YOKK 


NOTE 

Of  the  sixteen  essays  in  this  volume,  some 
have  appeared  in  London  :  in  the  Interna- 
tional Library  of  Famous  Literature,  the 
Fortnightly  Review,  the  Daily  Mail  and 
London  Opinion ;  some  in  the  following 
American  Reviews:  the  Century  Maga- 
zine, the  Bookman,  the  Critic,  the  Smart 
Set,  Ainslee's  Magazine,  the  Metropolitan 
Magazine,  Harper's  Magazine  and  Har- 
per's Bazar.  The  author  s  thanks  are  due 
to  the  respective  proprietors  of  these  publi- 
cations for  their  permission  to  republish  in 
the  present  volume. 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2007  witii  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


littp://www.archive.org/details/doublegardenOOmaetiala 


Contents 


Pagi 

Our  Friend,  the  Dog 

• 

11 

The  Temple  of  Chance 

• 

.      47 

In  Praise  of  the  Sword  ! 

• 

.       67 

Death  and  the  Crown 

. 

.       83 

Universal  Suffrage.    . 

• 

.       99 

The  Modern  Drama  . 

. 

.     115 

The  Foretelling  of  the 

Future 

139 

In  an  Automobile 

. 

.     171 

News  of  Spring  . 

• 

189 

The  Wrath  of  the  Bee 

. 

205 

Field   Flowers    . 

. 

219 

Chrysanthemums 

•         « 

^33 

Old-fashioned  Flowers 

• 

251 

Sincerity 

• 

279 

Portrait  of  a  Lady     . 

. 

295 

The  Leaf  of  Olive 

.         . 

317 

OUR   FRIEND,  THE   DOG 


THE    DOUBLE    GARDEN 


OUR   FRIEND,   THE   DOG 
I 

I  HAVE  lost,  within  these  last  few  days, 
a  little  bull-dog.  He  had  just  com- 
pleted the  sixth  month  of  his  brief 
existence.  He  had  no  history.  His  intelli- 
gent eyes  opened  to  look  out  upon  the 
world,  to  love  mankind,  then  closed  again 
on  the  cruel  secrets  of  death. 

The  friend  who  presented  me  with  him 
had  given  him,  perhaps  by  antiphrasis,  the 
startling  name  of  Pelleas.  Why  rechristen 
him?  For  how  can  a  poor  dog,  loving, 
devoted,  faithful,  disgrace  the  name  of  a 
man  or  an  imaginary  hero  ? 

Pelleas  had  a  great  bulging,  powerful 
II 


The    Double  Garden 

forehead,  like  that  of  Socrates  or  Verlaine; 
and,  under  a  little  black  nose,  blunt  as  a 
churlish  assent,  a  pair  of  large  hanging  and 
symmetrical  chops,  which  made  his  head 
a  sort  of  massive,  obstinate,  pensive  and 
three-cornered  menace.  He  was  beautiful 
after  the  manner  of  a  beautiful,  natural 
monster  that  has  complied  strictly  with  the 
laws  of  Its  species.  And  what  a  smile  of 
attentive  obligingness,  of  Incorruptible 
innocence,  of  affectionate  submission,  of 
boundless  gratitude  and  total  self-abandon- 
ment lit  up,  at  the  least  caress,  that 
adorable  mask  of  ugliness  1  Whence 
exactly  did  that  smile  emanate?  From  the 
ingenuous  and  melting  eyes?  From  the 
ears  pricked  up  to  catch  the  words  of  man? 
From  the  forehead  that  unwrinkled  to 
appreciate  and  love,  or  from  the  stump  of 
a  tail  that  wriggled  at  the  other  end  to 
testify  to  the  intimate  and  impassioned  joy 
that  filled  his  small  being,  happy  once  more 

13 


Our  Friend,  the   Dog 

to  encounter  the  hand  or  the  glance  of  the 
god  to  whom  he  surrendered  himself? 

Pclleas  was  born  in  Paris,  and  I  had 
taken  him  to  the  country.  His  bonny  fat 
paws,  shapeless  and  not  yet  stiffened, 
carried  slackly  through  the  unexplored 
pathways  of  his  new  existence  his  huge  and 
serious  head,  flat-nosed  and,  as  it  were, 
rendered  heavy  with  thought. 

For  this  thankless  and  rather  sad  head, 
like  that  of  an  overworked  child,  was  begin- 
ning the  overwhelming  work  that  oppresses 
every  brain  at  the  start  of  life.  He  had,  in 
less  than  five  or  six  weeks,  to  get  into  his 
mind,  taking  shape  within  it,  an  image  and 
a  satisfactory  conception  of  the  universe. 
Man,  aided  by  all  the  knowledge  of  his 
own  elders  and  his  brothers,  takes  thirty  or 
forty  years  to  outline  that  conception,  but 
the  humble  dog  has  to  unravel  it  for  him- 
self in  a  few  days :  and  yet,  in  the  eyes  of  a 
god,  who  should  know  all  things,  would  it 
13 


The    Double  Garden 

not  have  the  same  weight  and  the  same 
value  as  our  own? 

It  was  a  question,  then,  of  studying  the 
ground,  which  can  be  scratched  and  dug  up 
and  which  sometimes  reveals  surprising 
things;  of  casting  at  the  sky,  which  is  unin- 
teresting, for  there  is  nothing  there  to  eat, 
one  glance  that  does  away  with  it  for  good 
and  all;  of  discovering  the  grass,  the 
admirable  and  green  grass,  the  springy  and 
cool  grass,  a  field  for  races  and  sports,  a 
friendly  and  boundless  bed,  in  which  lies 
hidden  the  good  and  wholesome  couch- 
grass.  It  was  a  question,  also,  of  taking 
promiscuously  a  thousand  urgent  and 
curious  observations.  It  was  necessary,  for 
instance,  with  no  other  guide  than  pain,  to 
learn  to  calculate  the  height  of  objects  from 
the  top  of  which  you  can  jump  into  space; 
to  convince  yourself  that  it  is  vain  to  pursue 
birds  who  fly  away  and  that  you  are  unable 
to  clamber  up  trees  after  the  cats  who  defy 
^4 


Our  Friend,  the  Dog 

you  there;  to  distinguish  between  the 
sunny  spots  where  it  is  delicious  to  sleep 
and  the  patches  of  shade  in  which  you 
shiver;  to  remark  with  stupefaction  that  the 
rain  does  not  fall  inside  the  houses,  that 
water  is  cold,  uninhabitable  and  dangerous, 
while  fire  is  beneficent  at  a  distance,  but 
terrible  when  you  come  too  near;  to  observe 
that  the  meadows,  the  farm-yards  and  some- 
times the  roads  are  haunted  by  giant 
creatures  with  threatening  horns,  creatures 
good-natured,  perhaps,  and,  at  any  rate, 
silent,  creatures  who  allow  you  to  sniff  at 
them  a  little  curiously  without  taking 
offence,  but  who  keep  their  real  thoughts 
to  themselves.  It  was  necessary  to  learn,  as 
the  result  of  painful  and  humiliating  experi- 
ment, that  you  are  not  at  liberty  to  obey  all 
nature's  laws  without  distinction  in  the 
dwelling  of  the  gods;  to  recognize  that  the 
kitchen  is  the  privileged  and  most  agreeable 
spot  in  that  divine  dwelling,  although  you 
IS 


The    Double  Garden 

arc  hardly  allowed  to  abide  in  it  because  of 
the  cook,  who  is  a  considerable,  but  jealous 
power;  to  learn  that  doors  are  important 
and  capricious  volitions,  which  sometimes 
lead  to  felicity,  but  which  most  often,  her- 
metically closed,  mute  and  stern,  haughty 
and  heartless,  remain  deaf  to  all  entreaties; 
to  admit,  once  and  for  all,  that  the  essential 
good  things  of  life,  the  indisputable  bless- 
ings, generally  imprisoned  in  pots  and  stew- 
pans,  are  almost  always  inaccessible;  to 
know  how  to  look  at  them  with  laboriously- 
acquired  indifference  and  to  practise  to  take 
no  notice  of  them,  saying  to  yourself  that 
here  are  objects  which  are  probably  sacred, 
since  merely  to  skim  them  with  the  tip  of  a 
respectful  tongue  is  enough  to  let  loose  the 
unanimous  anger  of  all  the  gods  of  the 
house. 

And  then,  what  is  one  to  think  of  the 
table  on  which  so  many  things  happen  that 
cannot  be  guessed;  of  the  derisive  chairs  on 
i6 


Our  Friend,  the  Dog 

which  one  is  forbidden  to  sleep;  of  the 
plates  and  dishes  that  are  empty  by  the 
time  that  one  can  get  at  them;  of  the  lamp 
that  drives  away  the  dark  ?  .  .  .  How  many 
orders,  dangers,  prohibitions,  problems, 
enigmas  has  one  not  to  classify  in  one's 
overburdened  memory!  .  .  .  And  how  to 
reconcile  all  this  with  other  laws,  other 
enigmas,  wider  and  more  imperious,  which 
one  bears  within  one's  self,  within  one's 
instinct,  which  spring  up  and  develop  from 
one  hour  to  the  other,  which  come  from  the 
depths  of  time  and  the  race,  invade  the 
blood,  the  muscles  and  the  nerves  and  sud- 
denly assert  themselves  more  irresistibly 
and  more  powerfully  than  pain,  the  word 
of  the  master  himself,  or  the  fear  of 
death? 

Thus,  for  instance,   to   quote  only   one 

example,  when  the  hour  of  sleep  has  struck 

for  men,  you   have   retired  to  your  hole, 

surrounded  by  the  darkness,  the  silence  and 

17 


The    Double  Garden 

the  formidable  solitude  of  the  night.  All 
is  asleep  in  the  master's  house.  You  feel 
yourself  very  small  and  weak  in  the 
presence  of  the  mystery.  You  know  that 
the  gloom  is  peopled  with  foes  who  hover 
and  lie  in  wait.  You  suspect  the  trees,  the 
passing  wind  and  the  moonbeams.  You 
would  like  to  hide,  to  suppress  yourself  by 
holding  your  breath.  But  still  the  watch 
must  be  kept;  you  must,  at  the  least  sound, 
issue  from  your  retreat,  face  the  invisible 
and  bluntly  disturb  the  imposing  silence  of 
the  earth,  at  the  risk  of  bringing  down  the 
whispering  evil  or  crime  upon  yourself 
alone.  Whoever  the  enemy  be,  even  if  he 
be  man,  that  is  to  say,  the  very  brother  of 
the  god  whom  it  is  your  business  to  defend, 
you  must  attack  him  blindly,  fly  at  his 
throat,  fasten  your  perhaps  sacrilegious 
teeth  into  human  flesh,  disregard  the  spell 
of  a  hand  and  voice  similar  to  those  of  your 
master,  never  be  silent,  never  attempt  to 
i8 


Our  Friend,  the  Dog 

escape,  never  allow  yourself  to  be  tempted 
or  bribed  and,  lost  in  the  night  without 
help,  prolong  the  heroic  alarm  to  your  last 
breath. 

There  is  the  great  ancestral  duty,  the 
essential  duty,  stronger  than  death,  which 
not  even  man's  will  and  anger  are  able  to 
check.  All  our  humble  history,  linked  with 
that  of  the  dog  in  our  first  struggles  against 
every  breathing  thing,  tends  to  prevent  his 
forgetting  it.  And  when,  in  our  safer 
dwelling-places  of  to-day,  we  happen  to 
punish  him  for  his  untimely  zeal,  he  throws 
us  a  glance  of  astonished  reproach,  as 
though  to  point  out  to  us  that  we  are  in  the 
wrong  and  that,  if  we  lose  sight  of  the 
main  clause  in  the  treaty  of  alliance  which 
he  made  with  us  at  the  time  when  we  lived 
in  caves,  forests  and  fens,  he  continues 
faithful  to  it  in  spite  of  us  and  remains 
nearer  to  the  eternal  truth  of  life,  which  is 
full  of  snares  and  hostile  forces. 
19 


The    Double   Garden 

But  how  much  care  and  study  are  needed 
to  succeed  in  fulfilling  this  duty!  And 
how  complicated  it  has  become  since  the 
days  of  the  silent  caverns  and  the  great 
deserted  lakes  1  It  was  all  so  simple,  then, 
so  easy  and  so  clear.  The  lonely  hollow 
opened  upon  the  side  of  the  hill,  and  all 
that  approached,  all  that  moved  on  the 
horizon  of  the  plains  or  woods,  was  the 
unmistakable  enemy.  .  .  .  But  to-day  you 
can  no  longer  tell.  .  .  .  You  have  to 
acquaint  yourself  with  a  civilization  of 
which  you  disapprove,  to  appear  to  under- 
stand a  thousand  incomprehensible  things. 
.  .  .  Thus,  it  seems  evident  that  hence- 
forth the  whole  world  no  longer  belongs  to 
the  master,  that  his  property  conforms  to 
unintelligible  limits.  ...  It  becomes  ne- 
cessary, therefore,  first  of  all  to  know 
exactly  where  the  sacred  domain  begins  and 
ends.  Whom  are  you  to  suffer,  whom  to 
stop?  .  .  .  There  Is  the  road   by  which 


Our  Friend,  the  Dog 

every  one,  even  the  poor,  has  the  right  to 
pass.  Why?  You  do  not  know;  it  is  a  fact 
which  you  deplore,  but  which  you  are  bound 
to  accept.  Fortunately,  on  the  other  hand, 
here  is  the  fair  path  which  none  may  tread. 
This  path  is  faithful  to  the  sound  traditions ; 
it  is  not  to  be  lost  sight  of;  for  by  it  enter 
into  your  daily  existence  the  difficult  prob- 
lems of  life. 

Would  you  have  an  example?  You  are 
sleeping  peacefully  in  a  ray  of  the  sun  that 
covers  the  threshold  of  the  kitchen  with 
pearls.  The  earthenware  pots  are  amusing 
themselves  by  elbowing  and  nudging  one 
another  on  the  edge  of  the  shelves 
trimmed  with  paper  lace-work.  The  cop- 
per stew-pans  play  at  scattering  spots  of 
light  over  the  smooth  white  walls.  The 
motherly  stove  hums  a  soft  tune  and 
dandles  three  saucepans  blissfully  dancing; 
and,  from  the  little  hole  that  lights  up  its 
inside,   defies  the  good  dog  who  cannot 

2X 


The    Double  Garden 

approach,  by  constantly  putting  out  at  him 
its  fiery  tongue.  The  clock,  bored  in  its  oak 
case,  before  striking  the  august  hour  of 
meal-time,  swings  its  great  gilt  navel  to  and 
fro;  and  the  cunning  flies  tease  your  ears. 
On  the  glittering  table  lie  a  chicken,  a  hare, 
three  partridges,  besides  other  things  which 
are  called  fruits — peaches,  melons,  grapes 
— and  which  are  all  good  for  nothing. 
The  cook  guts  a  big  silver  fish  and  throws 
the  entrails  (instead  of  giving  them  to 
you!)  into  the  dust-bin.  Ah,  the  dust-bin  1 
Inexhaustible  treasury,  receptacle  of  wind- 
falls, the  jewel  of  the  house !  You  shall 
have  your  share  of  it,  an  exquisite  and  sur- 
reptitious share;  but  it  does  not  do  to  seem 
to  know  where  it  is.  You  are  strictly  for- 
bidden to  rummage  in  it.  Man  in  this  way 
prohibits  many  pleasant  things,  and  life 
would  be  dull  indeed  and  your  days  empty 
if  you  had  to  obey  all  the  orders  of  the 
pantry,    the   cellar   and   the   dining-room. 

22 


Our  Friend,  the   Dog 

Luckily,  he  is  absent-minded  and  does  not 
long  remember  the  instructions  which  he 
lavishes.  He  is  easily  deceived.  You  achieve 
your  ends  and  do  as  you  please,  provided 
you  have  the  patience  to  await  the  hour. 
You  are  subject  to  man,  and  he  is  the  one 
god;  but  you  none  the  less  have  your  ov/n 
personal,  exact  and  imperturbable  morality, 
which  proclaims  aloud  that  illicit  acts 
become  most  lawful  through  the  very  fact 
that  they  are  performed  without  the  mas- 
ter's knowledge.  Therefore,  let  us  close  the 
watchful  eye  that  has  seen.  Let  us  pretend 
to  sleep  and  to  dream  of  the  moon.  .  .  . 
Hark!  A  gentle  tapping  at  the  blue 
window  that  looks  out  on  the  garden  I 
What  is  it?  Nothing;  a  bough  of  haw- 
thorn that  has  come  to  see  what  we  are 
doing  in  the  cool  kitchen.  Trees  are 
inquisitive  and  often  excited;  but  they  do 
not  count,  one  has  nothing  to  say  to  them, 
they  are  irresponsible,  they  obey  the  wind, 
23 


The  Double    Garden 

which  has  no  principles.  .  .  .  But  what  is 
that?  I  hear  steps!  .  .  .  Up,  ears  open; 
nose  on  the  alert !  ...  It  is  the  baker  com* 
ing  up  to  the  rails,  while  the  postman  is 
opening  a  little  gate  in  the  hedge  of  lime- 
trees.  They  are  friends;  it  is  well;  they 
bring  something:  you  can  greet  them  and 
wag  your  tail  discreetly  twice  or  thrice,  with 
a  patronizing  smile.  .  .  . 

Another  alarm!  What  is  it  now?  A 
carriage  pulls  up  in  front  of  the  steps.  The 
problem  is  a  complex  one.  Before  all,  it  is 
of  consequence  to  heap  copious  insults  on 
the  horses,  great,  proud  beasts,  who  make 
no  reply.  Meantime,  you  examine  out  of 
the  corner  of  your  eye  the  persons  alight- 
ing. They  are  well-clad  and  seem  full  of 
confidence.  They  are  probably  going  to 
sit  at  the  table  of  the  gods.  The  proper 
thing  is  to  bark  without  acrimony,  with  a 
shade  of  respect,  so  as  to  show  that  you  are 
doing  your  duty,  but  that  you  are  doing  it 


Our  Friend,  the  Dog 

with  intelligence.  Nevertheless,  you  cherish 
a  lurking  suspicion  and,  behind  the  guests' 
backs,  stealthily,  you  sniff  the  air  per- 
sistently and  in  a  knowing  way,  in  order  to 
discern  any  hidden  intentions. 

But  halting  footsteps  resound  outside  the 
kitchen.  This  time  it  is  the  poor  man  drag- 
ging his  crutch,  the  unmistakable  enemy, 
the  hereditary  enemy,  the  direct  descendant 
of  him  who  roamed  outside  the  bone- 
crammed  cave  which  you  suddenly  see 
again  in  your  racial  memory.  Drunk  with 
indignation,  your  bark  broken,  your  teeth 
multiplied  with  hatred  and  rage,  you  are 
about  to  seize  the  irreconcilable  adversary 
by  the  breeches,  when  the  cook,  armed  with 
her  broom,  the  ancillary  and  forsworn 
sceptre,  comes  to  protect  the  traitor,  and 
you  are  obliged  to  go  back  to  your  hole, 
where,  with  eyes  filled  with  impotent  and 
slanting  flames,  you  growl  out  frightful, 
but  futile  curses,  thinking  within  yourself 

2S 


The    Double  Garden 

that  this  is  the  end  of  all  things,  and  that 
the  human  species  has  lost  its  notion  of 
justice  and  injustice.  .  .  . 

Is  that  all?  Not  yet;  for  the  smallest 
life  is  made  up  of  innumerous  duties,  and 
it  is  a  long  work  to  organize  a  happy 
existence  upon  the  borderland  of  two  such 
different  worlds  as  the  world  of  beasts  and 
the  world  of  men.  How  should  we  fare  if 
we  had  to  serve,  while  remaining  within 
our  own  sphere,  a  divinity,  not  an  imagi- 
nary one,  like  to  ourselves,  because  the  off- 
spring of  our  own  brain,  but  a  god  actually 
visible,  ever  present,  ever  active  and  as 
foreign,  as  superior  to  our  being  as  we  are 
to  the  dog  ? 

We  now,  to  return  to  Pelleas,  know 
pretty  well  what  to  do  and  how  to  behave 
on  the  master's  premises.  But  the  world 
does  not  end  at  the  house-door,  and,  beyond 
the  walls  and  beyond  the  hedge,  there  is  a 
universe  of  which  one  has  not  the  custody, 
a6 


Our  Friend,  the  Dog 

where  one  is  no  longer  at  home,  where 
relations  are  changed.  How  are  we  to 
stand  in  the  street,  in  the  fields,  in  the 
market-place,  in  the  shops  ?  In  consequence 
of  difficult  and  delicate  observations,  we 
understand  that  we  must  take  no  notice  of 
passers-by;  obey  no  calls  but  the  master's; 
be  polite,  with  indifference,  to  strangers 
who  pet  us.  Next,  we  must  conscientiously 
fulfil  certain  obligations  of  mysterious 
courtesy  toward  our  brothers  the  other 
dogs;  respect  chickens  and  ducks;  not 
appear  to  remark  the  cakes  at  the  pastry- 
cooks, which  spread  themselves  insolently 
within  reach  of  the  tongue;  show  to  the 
cats,  who,  on  the  steps  of  the  houses,  pro- 
voke us  by  hideous  grimaces,  a  silent  con- 
tempt, but  one  that  will  not  forget;  and 
remember  that  it  is  lawful  and  even  com- 
mendable to  chase  and  strangle  mice,  rats, 
wild  rabbits  and,  generally  speaking,  all 
animals  (we  learn  to  know  them  by  secret 
27 


The  Double    Garden 

marks)  that  have  not  yet  made  their  peace 
with  mankind. 

All  this  and  so  much  morel  .  .  .  Was 
it  surprising  that  Pelleas  often  appeared 
pensive  in  the  face  of  those  numberless 
problems,  and  that  his  humble  and  gentle 
look  was  often  so  profound  and  grave, 
laden  with  cares  and  full  of  unreadable 
questions? 

Alas,  he  did  not  have  time  to  finish  the 
long  and  heavy  task  which  nature  lays  upon 
the  instinct  that  rises  in  order  to  approach 
a  brighter  region.  .  .  .  An  ill  of  a  myste- 
rious character,  which  seems  specially  to 
punish  the  only  animal  that  succeeds  in 
leaving  the  circle  in  which  it  is  born;  an 
indefinite  ill  that  carries  off  hundreds  of 
intelligent  little  dogs,  came  to  put  an  end 
to  the  destiny  and  the  happy  education  of 
Pelleas.  And  now  all  those  efforts  to 
achieve  a  little  more  light;  all  that  ardour 
in  loving,  that  courage  in  understanding; 
26 


Our  Friend,  the  Dog 

all  that  affectionate  gaiety  and  innocent 
fawning;  all  those  kind  and  devoted  looks, 
which  turned  to  man  to  ask  for  his  assist- 
ance against  unjust  death;  all  those  flicker- 
ing gleams  which  came  from  the  profound 
abyss  of  a  world  that  is  no  longer  ours; 
all  those  nearly  human  little  habits  lie  sadly 
in  the  cold  ground,  under  a  flowering  elder- 
tree,  in  a  corner  of  the  garden. 

II 

Man  loves  the  dog,  but  how  much  more 
ought  he  to  love  it  if  he  considered,  in  the 
inflexible  harmony  of  the  laws  of  nature, 
the  sole  exception,  which  is  that  love  of  a 
being  that  succeeds  in  piercing,  in  order  to 
draw  closer  to  us,  the  partitions,  every  else- 
where Impermeable,  that  separate  the 
species !  We  are  alone,  absolutely  alone  on 
this  chance  planet ;  and,  amid  all  the  forms 
of  life  that  surround  us,  not  one,  excepting 
29 


The  Double    Garden 

the  dog,  has  made  an  alliance  with  us.  A 
few  creatures  fear  us,  most  are  unaware  of 
us,  and  not  one  loves  us.  In  the  world  of 
plants,  we  have  dumb  and  motionless 
slaves;  but  they  serve  us  in  spite  of  them- 
selves. They  simply  endure  our  laws  and 
our  yoke.  They  are  impotent  prisoners, 
victims  incapable  of  escaping,  but  silently 
rebellious;  and,  so  soon  as  we  lose  sight  of 
them,  they  hasten  to  betray  us  and  return 
to  their  former  wild  and  mischievous 
liberty.  The  rose  and  the  corn,  had  they 
wings,  would  fly  at  our  approach  like  the 
birds. 

Among  the  animals,  we  number  a  few 
servants  who  have  submitted  only  through 
indifference,  cowardice  or  stupidity:  the 
uncertain  and  craven  horse,  who  responds 
only  to  pain  and  is  attached  to  nothing; 
the  passive  and  dejected  ass,  who  stays  with 
us  only  because  he  knows  not  what  to  do 
nor  where  to  go,  but  who  nevertheless, 
30 


Our  Friend,  the  Dog 

under  the  cudgel  and  the  pack-saddle, 
retains  the  idea  that  lurks  behind  his  ears; 
the  cow  and  the  ox,  happy  so  long  as  they 
are  eating,  and  docile  because,  for  centuries, 
they  have  not  had  a  thought  of  their  own ; 
the  affrighted  sheep,  who  knows  no  other 
master  than  terror;  the  hen,  who  is  faithful 
to  the  poultry-yard  because  she  finds  more 
maize  and  wheat  there  than  in  the  neigh- 
bouring forest.  I  do  not  speak  of  the  cat, 
to  whom  we  are  nothing  more  than  a  too 
large  and  uneatable  prey :  the  ferocious  cat, 
whose  sidelong  contempt  tolerates  us  only 
as  encumbering  parasites  in  our  own  homes. 
She,  at  least,  curses  us  in  her  mysterious 
heart;  but  all  the  others  live  beside  us  as 
they  might  live  beside  a  rock  or  a  tree. 
They  do  not  love  us,  do  not  know  us, 
scarcely  notice  us.  They  are  unaware  of 
our  life,  our  death,  our  departure,  our 
return,  our  sadness,  our  joy,  our  smile. 
They  do  not  even  hear  the  sound  of  our 
31 


The    Double    Garden 

voice,  so  soon  as  It  no  longer  threatens 
them ;  and,  when  they  look  at  us,  it  is  with 
the  distrustful  bewilderment  of  the  horse, 
in  whose  eye  still  hovers  the  infatuation  of 
the  elk  or  gazelle  that  sees  us  for  the  first 
time,  or  with  the  dull  stupor  of  the 
ruminants,  who  look  upon  us  as  a  momen- 
tary and  useless  accident  of  the  pasture. 

For  thousands  of  years,  they  have  been 
living  at  our  side,  as  foreign  to  our 
thoughts,  our  affections,  our  habits  as 
though  the  least  fraternal  of  the  stars  had 
dropped  them  but  yesterday  on  our  globe. 
In  the  boundless  interval  that  separates  man 
from  all  the  other  creatures,  we  have  suc- 
ceeded only,  by  dint  of  patience,  in  making 
them  take  two  or  three  illusory  steps.  And, 
if,  to-morrow,  leaving  their  feelings 
toward  us  untouched,  nature  were  to  give 
them  the  intelligence  and  the  weapons 
wherewith  to  conquer  us,  I  confess  that  I 
should  distrust  the  hasty  vengeance  of  the 
33 


Our  Friend,  the  Dog 

horse,  the  obstinate  reprisals  of  the  ass  and 
the  maddened  meekness  of  the  sheep.  I 
should  shun  the  cat  as  I  should  shun  the 
tiger;  and  even  the  good  cow,  solemn  and 
somnolent,  would  inspire  me  with  but  a 
wary  confidence.  As  for  the  hen,  with  her 
round,  quick,  eye,  as  when  discovering  a 
slug  or  a  worm,  I  am  sure  that  she  would 
devour  me  without  a  thought. 

Ill 

Now,  in  this  indifference  and  this  total 
want  of  comprehension  in  which  everything 
that  surrounds  us  lives;  in  this  incommuni- 
cable world,  where  everything  has  its 
object  hermetically  contained  within  itself, 
where  every  destiny  is  self-circumscribed, 
where  there  exist  among  the  creatures  no 
other  relations  than  those  of  executioners 
and  victims,  eaters  and  eaten,  where  no- 
thing is  able  to  leave  its  steel-bound  sphere, 
33 


The    Double    Garden 

where  death  alone  establishes  cruel  relations 
of  cause  and  effect  between  neighbouring 
lives,  where  not  the  smallest  sympathy  has 
ever  made  a  conscious  leap  from  one 
species  to  another,  one  animal  alone,  among 
all  that  breathes  upon  the  earth,  has  suc- 
ceeded in  breaking  through  the  prophetic 
circle,  in  escaping  from  itself  to  come 
bounding  toward  us,  definitely  to  cross 
the  enormous  zone  of  darkness,  ice  and 
silence  that  isolates  each  category  of  exist- 
ence in  nature's  unintelligible  plan.  This 
animal,  our  good  familiar  dog,  simple  and 
unsurprising  as  may  to-day  appear  to  us 
what  he  has  done,  in  thus  perceptibly  draw- 
ing nearer  to  a  world  in  which  he  was  not 
born  and  for  which  he  was  not  destined,  has 
nevertheless  performed  one  of  the  most 
unusual  and  improbable  acts  that  we  can 
find  in  the  general  history  of  life.  When 
was  this  recognition  of  man  by  beast,  this 
extraordinary  passage  from  darkness  to 
34 


Our  Friend,  the  Dog 

light,  effected?  Did  we  seek  out  the 
poodle,  the  collie,  or  the  mastiff  from 
among  the  wolves  and  the  jackals,  or  did  he 
come  spontaneously  to  us  ?  We  cannot  tell. 
So  far  as  our  human  annals  stretch,  he  is 
at  our  side,  as  at  present;  but  what  are 
human  annals  in  comparison  with  the  times 
of  which  we  have  no  witness?  The  fact 
remains  that  he  is  there  in  our  houses,  as 
ancient,  as  rightly  placed,  as  perfectly 
adapted  to  our  habits  as  though  he  had 
appeared  on  this  earth,  such  as  he  now  is,  at 
the  same  time  as  ourselves.  We  have  not 
to  gain  his  confidence  or  his  friendship :  he 
is  born  our  friend;  while  his  eyes  are  still 
closed,  already  he  believes  in  us:  even 
before  his  birth,  he  has  given  himself  to 
man.  But  the  word  "friend"  does  not 
exactly  depict  his  affectionate  worship.  He 
loves  us  and  reveres  us  as  though  we  had 
drawn  him  out  of  nothing.  He  is,  before 
all,  our  creature  full  of  gratitude  and  more 

35 


The    Double   Garden 

devoted  than  the  apple  of  our  eye.  He  is 
our  intimate  and  impassioned  slave,  whom 
nothing  discourages,  whom  nothing  repels, 
whose  ardent  trust  and  love  nothing  can 
impair.  He  has  solved,  in  an  admirable 
and  touching  manner,  the  terrifying  prob- 
lem which  human  wisdom  would  have  to 
solve  if  a  divine  race  came  to  occupy  our 
globe.  He  has  loyally,  religiously,  irrevo- 
cably recognized  man's  superiority  and  has 
surrendered  himself  to  him  body  and  soul, 
without  after-thought,  without  any  inten- 
tion to  go  back,  reserving  of  his  inde- 
pendence, his  instinct  and  his  character  only 
the  small  part  indispensable  to  the  continu- 
ation of  the  life  prescribed  by  nature. 
With  an  unquestioning  certainty,  an  uncon- 
straint  and  a  simplicity  that  surprise  us  a 
little,  deeming  us  better  and  more  powerful 
than  all  that  exists,  he  betrays,  for  our 
benefit,  the  whole  of  the  animal  kingdom  to 
which  he  belongs  and,  without  scruple, 
36 


Our  Friend,  the  Dog 

denies  his  race,  his  kin,  his  mother  and  his 
young. 

But  he  loves  us  not  only  in  his  conscious- 
ness and  his  intelligence:  the  very  instinct 
of  his  race,  the  entire  unconsciousness  of  his 
species,  it  appears,  think  only  of  us,  dream 
only  of  being  useful  to  us.  To  serve  us 
better,  to  adapt  himself  better  to  our  dif- 
ferent needs,  he  has  adopted  every  shape 
and  been  able  infinitely  to  vary  the  faculties, 
the  aptitudes  which  he  places  at  our  dis- 
posal. Is  he  to  aid  us  in  the  pursuit  of 
game  in  the  planes?  His  legs  lengthen 
inordinately,  his  muzzle  tapers,  his  lungs 
widen,  he  becomes  swifter  than  the  deer. 
Does  our  prey  hide  under  wood?  The 
docile  genius  of  the  species,  forestalling  our 
desires,  presents  us  with  the  basset,  a  sort  of 
almost  footless  serpent,  which  steals  into  the 
closest  thickets.  Do  we  ask  that  he  should 
drive  our  flocks?  The  same  compliant 
genius  grants  him  the  requisite  size,  intelli- 
37 


The   Double    Garden 

gence,  energy  and  vigilance.  Do  we  intend 
him  to  watch  and  defend  our  house?  His 
head  becomes  round  and  monstrous,  in 
order  that  his  jaws  may  be  more  powerful, 
more  formidable  and  more  tenacious.  Are 
we  taking  him  to  the  south?  His  hair 
grows  shorter  and  lighter,  so  that  he  may 
faithfully  accompany  us  under  the  rays  of 
a  hotter  sun.  Are  we  going  up  to  the  north  ? 
His  feet  grow  larger,  the  better  to  tread 
the  snow;  his  fur  thickens,  in  order  that 
the  cold  may  not  compel  him  to  abandon 
us.  Is  he  intended  only  for  us  to  play  with, 
to  amuse  the  leisure  of  our  eyes,  to  adorn 
or  enliven  the  home?  He  clothes  himself 
in  a  sovereign  grace  and  elegance,  he  makes 
himself  smaller  than  a  doll  to  sleep  on  our 
knees  by  the  fireside,  or  even  consents, 
should  our  fancy  demand  it,  to  appear  a 
little  ridiculous  to  please  us. 

You  shall  not  find,  in  nature's  immense 
crucible,    a   single   living  being   that  has 
38 


Our  Friend,  the  Dog 

shown  a  like  suppleness,  a  similar  abund- 
ance of  forms,  the  same  prodigious  faculty 
of  accommodation  to  our  wishes.  This  is 
because,  in  the  world  which  we  know, 
among  the  different  and  primitive  geniuses 
that  preside  over  the  evolution  of  the 
several  species,  there  exists  not  one,  except- 
ing that  of  the  dog,  that  ever  gave  a 
thought  to  the  presence  of  man. 

It  will,  perhaps,  be  said  that  we  have 
been  able  to  transform  almost  as  pro- 
foundly some  of  our  domestic  animals :  our 
hens,  our  pigeons,  our  ducks,  our  cats,  our 
horses,  our  rabbits,  for  instance.  Yes, 
perhaps;  although  such  transformations 
are  not  comparable  with  those  undergone 
by  the  dog  and  although  the  kind  of 
service  which  these  animals  render  us 
remains,  so  to  speak,  invariable.  In  any 
case,  whether  this  impression  be  purely 
imaginary  or  correspond  with  a  reality,  it 
does  not  appear  that  we  feel  in  these  trans- 

39 


The   Double    Garden 

formations  the  same  unfailing  and  pre- 
venting good  will,  the  same  sagacious 
and  exclusive  love.  For  the  rest,  it  is  quite 
possible  that  the  dog,  or  rather  the  inacces- 
sible genius  of  his  race,  troubles  scarcely  at 
all  about  us  and  that  we  have  merely 
known  how  to  make  use  of  various  apti- 
tudes offered  by  the  abundant  chances  of 
life.  It  matters  not:  as  we  know  nothing 
of  the  substance  of  things,  we  must  needs 
cling  to  appearances;  and  it  is  sweet  to 
establish  that,  at  least  in  appearance,  there 
is  on  the  planet  where,  like  unacknowledged 
kings,  we  live  in  solitary  state,  a  being  that 
loves  us. 

However  the  case  may  stand  with  these 
appearances,  it  is  none  the  less  certain  that, 
in  the  aggregate  of  intelligent  creatures 
that  have  rights,  duties,  a  mission  and  a 
destiny,  the  dog  is  a  really  privileged 
animal.  He  occupies  in  this  world  a  pre- 
eminent position  enviable  among  all.  He 
40 


Our  Friend,  the  Dog 

is  the  only  living  being  that  has  found  and 
recognizes  an  indubitable,  tangible,  unex- 
ceptionable and  definite  god.  He  knows  to 
what  to  devote  the  best  part  of  himself. 
He  knows  to  whom  above  him  to  give  him- 
self. He  has  not  to  seek  for  a  perfect, 
superior  and  infinite  power  in  the  darkness, 
amid  successive  lies,  hypotheses  and  dreams. 
That  power  Is  there,  before  him,  and  he 
moves  in  Its  light.  He  knows  the  supreme 
duties  which  we  all  do  not  know.  He  has 
a  morality  which  surpasses  all  that  he  Is 
able  to  discover  in  himself  and  which  he 
can  practise  without  scruple  and  without 
fear.  He  possesses  truth  in  Its  fulness.  He 
has  a  certain  and  Infinite  Ideal. 

IV 

And  It  was  thus  that,   the   other   day, 
before  his  illness,  I    saw  my   little  Pelleas 
sitting  at  the  foot  of  my  writing-table,  his 
41 


The   Double    Garden 

tail  carefully  folded  under  his  paws,  his 
head  a  little  on  one  side,  the  better  to 
question  me,  at  once  attentive  and  tran- 
quil, as  a  saint  should  be  in  the  presence 
of  God.  He  was  happy  with  the  happiness 
which  we,  perhaps,  shall  never  know,  since 
it  sprang  from  the  smile  and  the  approval 
of  a  life  incomparably  higher  than  his  own. 
He  was  there,  studying,  drinking  in  all  my 
looks;  and  he  replied  to  them  gravely,  as 
from  equal  to  equal,  to  inform  me,  no 
doubt,  that,  at  least  through  the  eyes, 
the  most  immaterial  organ  that  trans- 
formed into  affectionate  intelligence  the 
light  which  we  enjoyed,  he  knew  that  he 
was  saying  to  me  all  that  love  should  say. 
And,  when  I  saw  him  thus,  young,  ardent 
and  believing,  bringing  me,  in  some  wise, 
from  the  depths  of  unwearied  nature,  quite 
fresh  news  of  life  and  trusting  and  wonder- 
struck,  as  though  he  had  been  the  first  of 
his  race  that  came  to  inaugurate  the  earth 
42 


Our  Friend,  the  Dog 

and  as  though  we  were  still  in  the  first  days 
of  the  world's  existence,  I  envied  the  glad- 
ness of  his  certainty,  compared  it  with  the 
destiny  of  man,  still  plunging  on  every  side 
into  darkness,  and  said  to  myself  that  the 
dog  who  meets  with  a  good  master  is  the 
happier  of  the  two. 


43 


THE  TEMPLE  OF  CHANCE 


THE  TEMPLE  OF  CHANCE 
I 

I  SACRIFICED— for  it  is  a  sacrifice  to 
forsake  the  incomparable  play  of  the 
stars  and  moon  on  the  divine  Mediter- 
ranean— I  sacrificed  a  few  evenings  of  my 
stay  in  the  land  of  the  sun  to  the  consulting 
of  the  most  mystic  god  of  this  world  of  ours 
in  the  busiest,  the  most  gorgeous  and  the 
most  individual  of  his  temples. 

This  temple  stands  down  there,  at  Monte 
Carlo,  on  a  rock  bathed  in  the  dazzling 
light  of  the  sea  and  sky.  Enchanted 
gardens,  where  blossom  in  January  all  the 
flowers  of  spring,  summer  and  autumn, 
sweet-scented  thickets  that  borrow  nothing 
from  the  hostile  seasons  but  their  perfume 
and  their  smiles  lie  before  its  porch.    The 

47 


The    Double   Garden 

orange,  most  lovable  of  all  trees,  the  palm, 
the  lemon-tree,  the  mimosa  wreathe  it  with 
gaiety.  The  crowds  approach  it  by  royal 
stairways.  But,  mark  you,  the  building  is 
not  worthy  of  the  admirable  site  which  it 
commands,  of  the  delicious  hills,  the  azure 
and  emerald  gulf,  the  happy  meadows  that 
surround  it.  Nor  is  it  worthy  either  of  the 
god  whom  it  shelters  or  of  the  idea  which 
it  represents.  It  is  insipidly  emphatic  and 
hideously  blatant.  It  suggests  the  low 
insolence,  the  overweening  conceit  of  the 
flunkey  who  has  grown  rich  but  remains 
obsequious.  Examination  shows  it  to  be 
solidly  built  and  very  large ;  nevertheless,  it 
wears  the  mean  and  sadly  pretentious  air 
of  the  ephemeral  palaces  of  our  great  exhi- 
bitions. The  august  father  of  Destiny  has 
been  housed  in  a  sort  of  meringue  covered 
with  preserved  fruits  and  sugar  castles. 
Perhaps  the  residence  was  purposely  made 
ridiculous.  The  builders  may  have  feared 
48 


The  Temple  of  Chance 

lest  they  should  warn  or  alarm  the  crowd. 
They  probably  wished  to  make  it  believe 
that  the  kindliest,  the  most  frivolous,  the 
most  harmlessly  capricious,  the  least  serious 
of  the  gods  awaited  his  worshippers  on  a 
throne  of  cakes  inside  this  confectioner's 
master-piece.  Ah,  no;  a  mysterious  and 
grave  divinity  reigns  here,  a  wise  and 
sovereign  force,  harmonious  and  sure.  He 
should  have  been  throned  in  a  bare  marble 
palace,  severe,  simple  and  colossal,  high 
and  vast,  cold  and  spiritual,  rectangular  and 
rigid,  positive  and  overwhelming. 

II 

The  interior  corresponds  with  the 
exterior.  The  rooms  are  spacious,  but 
decorated  with  hackneyed  magnificence. 
The  acolytes  of  Chance,  the  bored,  indiffer- 
ent, monotonous  croupiers,  look  like  shop- 
assistants  in  their  Sunday  clothes.    They 

49 


The    Double  Garden 

are  not  the  high-priests,  but  the  office-clerks 
of  Hazard.  The  rites  and  implements  of 
the  cult  are  vulgar  and  commonplace :  a  few 
tables,  some  chairs;  here,  a  sort  of  bowl  or 
cylinder  that  turns  in  the  centre  of  each 
table,  with  a  tiny  ivory  ball  that  rolls  in  the 
opposite  direction;  there,  a  few  packs  of 
cards ;  and  that  is  all.  It  needs  no  more  to 
evoke  the  immeasurable  power  that  holds 
the  stars  in  suspense. 

Ill 

Around  the  tables  crowd  the  faithful. 
Each  of  them  carries  within  himself  hopes, 
belief,  different  and  invisible  tragedies  and 
comedies.  This,  I  think,  is  the  spot  in 
which  more  nervous  force  and  more  human 
passions  are  accumulated  and  absolutely 
squandered  than  in  any  other  in  the  world. 
This  is  the  ill-omened  spot  where  the  peer- 
less and,  perhaps,  divine  substance  of  sub- 
50 


The  Temple  of  Chance 

stances,  which,  in  every  other  place,  works 
pregnant  miracles,  prodigies  of  strength,  of 
beauty  and  of  love,  this  is  the  fatal  spot 
where  the  flower  of  the  soul,  the  most 
precious  fluid  on  the  planet,  leaks  away 
into  nothingness!  .  .  .  No  more  criminal 
waste  can  be  conceived.  This  unprofitable 
force,  which  knows  neither  whither  to  go 
nor  what  work  to  do,  which  finds  no  door 
nor  window,  no  direct  object  nor  manner  of 
transmission,  hovers  over  the  table  like  a 
mortal  shadow,  falls  back  upon  itself  and 
creates  a  particular  atmosphere,  a  sort  of 
sweating  silence  which  somehow  suggests 
the  fever  of  true  silence.  In  this  unwhole- 
some stillness,  the  voice  of  Fate's  little 
book-keeper  snuffles  out  the  sacred  for- 
mula: 

^^Faites,  vos  jeux,  messieurs,  faites  vas 
jeuxT' 

That  is  to  say,  make  to  the  hidden  god 
the  sacrifice  which  he  demands  before  he 
SI 


The    Double  Garden 

shows  himself.  Then,  somewhere  from  the 
crowd,  a  hand  bright  with  certainty  places 
imperiously  the  fruit  of  a  year's  work  on 
numbers  that  cannot  fail.  Other  adorers, 
more  cunning,  more  circumspect,  less  con- 
fident, compound  with  luck,  distribute  their 
chances,  compute  illusive  probabilities  and, 
having  studied  the  mood  and  peculiarities 
of  the  genius  of  the  table,  lay  complex  and 
knowing  traps  for  it.  Others,  again,  hand 
over  a  considerable  portion  of  their  happi- 
ness or  their  life,  at  random,  to  the  caprice 
of  numbers. 

But  now  the  second  formula  resounds : 

^^Rien  ne  va  plus!" 

That  is  to  say,  the  god  is  about  to  speak  I 
At  this  moment,  an  eye  that  could  pierce  the 
easy  veil  of  appearances  would  distinctly 
see  scattered  on  the  plain  green  cloth  (if  not 
actually,  then  at  least  potentially;  for  a 
single  stake  is  rare,  and  he  who  plays  of  his 
superfluity  to-day  will  risk  his  all  to-mor- 
53 


The  Temple  of  Chance 

row)  a  corn-field  ripening  in  the  sun  a 
thousand  miles  away;  or,  again,  in  other 
squares,  a  meadow,  a  wood,  a  moonlit 
country-house,  a  shop  in  some  little  market- 
town,  a  staff  of  book-keepers  and  account- 
ants bending  over  ledgers  in  their  gloomy 
oflices,  peasants  labouring  in  the  rain,  hun- 
dreds of  work-girls  slaving  from  morn  to 
night  in  deadly  factories,  miners  in  the 
mines,  sailors  on  their  ship;  the  jewels  of 
debauchery,  love  or  glory ;  a  prison,  a  dock- 
yard; joy,  misery,  injustice,  cruelty, 
avarice;  crimes,  privations,  tears.  All  this 
lies  there,  very  peacefully,  in  those  little 
heaps  of  smiling  gold,  in  those  flimsy 
scraps  of  paper  which  ordain  disasters 
which  even  a  life-time  would  be  powerless 
ever  to  efface.  The  slightest  timid  and  hesi- 
tating movements  of  these  yellow  counters 
and  blue  notes  will  rebound  and  swell  out 
in  the  distance,  in  the  real  world,  in  the 
streets,  in  the  plains,  in  the  trees,  in  men's 
53 


The  Double    Garden 

blood  and  in  their  hearts.  They  will 
demolish  the  house  that  saw  the  parents  die, 
carry  off  the  old  man's  chair,  give  a  new 
squire  to  the  astonished  village,  close  a 
workshop,  take  away  the  bread  from  the 
children  of  a  hamlet,  divert  the  course  of  a 
river,  stay  or  break  a  life  and,  through  an 
infinity  of  time  and  space,  burst  the  links  of 
an  uninterrupted  chain  of  cause  and  effect. 
But  none  of  these  resounding  truths  utters 
an  indiscreet  whisper  here.  There  are  here 
more  sleeping  Furies  than  on  the  purple 
steps  of  the  palace  of  the  Atridae ;  but  their 
cries  of  waking  and  of  pain  lie  hidden  at  the 
bottom  of  men's  hearts.  Nothing  betrays, 
nothing  foretells  that  there  are  definite  ills 
hovering  over  those  present  and  choosing 
their  victims.  Only,  the  eyes  stare  a  little, 
while  hands  shiftily  finger  a  pencil,  a  bit  of 
paper.  Not  an  unaccustomed  word  or 
gesture.  Clammy  expectation  sits  motion- 
less. For  this  is  the  place  of  voiceless 
54 


The  Temple  of  Chance 

pantomime,  of  stifled  fighting,  of  unblink- 
ing despair,  of  tragedy  masked  in  silence,  of 
dumb  destiny  sinking  in  an  atmosphere  of 
lies  that  swallows  up  every  sound. 

IV 

Meanwhile,  the  little  ball  spins  on  the 
cylinder,  and  I  reflect  upon  all  that  is 
destroyed  by  the  formidable  power  con- 
ferred on  it  through  a  monstrous  compact. 
Each  time  that  it  thus  starts  in  search  of  the 
mysterious  answer,  it  annihilates  all  around 
it  the  last  essential  remnants  of  our  social 
morality :  I  mean,  the  value  of  money.  To 
abolish  the  value  of  money  and  substitute 
for  it  a  higher  ideal  would  be  an  admirable 
achievement;  but  to  aboHsh  it  and  leave  in 
its  place  simply  nothing  is,  I  conceive,  one 
of  the  gravest  crimes  that  can  be  committed 
against  our  scheme  of  evolution.  If  we 
look  at  it  from  a  certain  point  of  view  and 
purify  it  of  its   incidental  vices,   money  is 

55 


The   Double   Garden 

essentially  a  very  worthy  symbol:  it  repre- 
sents human  effort  and  labour;  it  is,  for  the 
most  part,  the  fruit  of  laudable  sacrifice  and 
noble  toil.  Whereas  here,  this  symbol,  one 
of  the  last  that  was  left  to  us,  is  daily  sub- 
jected to  public  mockery.  Suddenly,  at  the 
caprice  of  a  little  thing  as  insignificant  as  a 
child's  toy,  ten  years  of  striving,  of  con- 
scientious thought,  of  tasks  patiently 
endured  lose  all  importance.  If  this 
hideous  phenomenon  were  not  isolated  on 
this  one  rock,  no  social  organization  but 
would  have  fallen  victim  to  the  injury 
spreading  from  it.  Even  now,  in  its  leprous 
isolation,  this  devastating  influence  makes 
itself  felt  at  a  distance  that  never  could 
have  been  estimated.  We  feel  that  this 
influence,  so  inevitable,  so  malevolent  and 
so  profound,  is  such  that,  when  we  leave 
this  cursed  palace  where  gold  clinks  inces- 
santly against  the  human  conscience,  we 
wonder  how  it  is  that  the  everyday  life  goes 
S6 


The  Temple  of  Chance 

on,  that  patient  gardeners  consent  to  keep 
up  the  flower-beds  in  front  of  the  fatal 
building,  that  wretched  guardians  can  be 
found  to  watch  over  its  precincts  for  a  con- 
temptible wage  and  that  a  poor  little  old 
woman,  at  the  bottom  of  its  marble  stairs, 
amid  the  coming  and  going  of  lucky  or 
ruined  gamblers,  for  years  persists  in  earn- 
ing a  laborious  livelihood  by  selling  penny- 
worths of  oranges,  almonds,  nuts  and 
matches  to  the  passers-by. 


While  we  are  making  these  reflections, 
the  ivory  ball  slackens  its  course  and  begins 
to  hop  like  a  noisy  insect  over  the  thirty- 
seven  compartments  that  allure  it.  This  is 
the  irrevocable  judgment.  O  strange 
infirmity  of  our  eyes,  our  ears  and  that 
brain  of  which  we  are  so  proud  I  O 
strange  secrets  of  the  most  elementary  laws 
57 


The   Double    Garden 

of  this  world  I  From  the  second  at  which 
the  ball  was  set  in  motion  to  the  second  at 
which  it  falls  into  the  fateful  hole,  on  the 
battle-field  three  yards  long,  in  this  childish 
and  mocking  form,  the  mystery  of  the 
Universe  inflicts  a  symbolical,  incessant  and 
disheartening  defeat  upon  human  power 
and  reason.  Collect  around  this  table  all 
the  wise  men,  all  the  divines,  all  the  seers, 
all  the  sages,  all  the  prophets,  all  the  saints, 
all  the  wonder-workers,  all  the  mathemati- 
cians, all  the  geniuses  of  every  time  and 
every  country;  ask  them  to  search  their 
reason,  their  soul,  their  knowledge,  their 
Heaven  for  the  number  so  close  at  hand, 
the  number  already  almost  part  of  the 
present  at  which  the  little  ball  will  end  its 
race;  beg  them,  so  that  they  may  foretell 
that  number  to  us,  to  invoke  their  gods  that 
know  all,  their  thoughts  that  govern  the 
nations  and  aspire  to  penetrate  the  worlds: 
all  their  efforts  will  break  against  this  brief 
58 


The  Temple  of  Chance 

puzzle  which  a  child  could  take  in  its  hand 
and  which  no  longer  fills  the  smallest 
moment's  space.  No  one  has  been  able  to 
do  it,  no  one  will  ever  do  it.  And  all  the 
strength,  all  the  certainty  of  the  "bank," 
which  is  the  impassive,  stubborn,  deter- 
mined and  ever-victorious  ally  of  the 
rhythmical  and  absolute  wisdom  of  Chance, 
lies  solely  in  the  establishment  of  man's 
powerlessness  to  foresee,  were  it  but  for  the 
third  of  a  second,  that  which  is  about  to 
happen  before  his  eyes.  If,  in  the  span  of 
nearly  fifty  years  during  which  these 
formidable  experiments  have  been  made  on 
this  flower-clad  rock,  one  single  being  had 
been  found  who,  in  the  course  of  an  after- 
noon, had  torn  the  veil  of  mystery  that 
covers,  at  each  throw,  the  tiny  future  of  the 
tiny  ball,  the  bank  would  have  been  broken, 
the  undertaking  wrecked.  But  that  abnor- 
mal being  has  not  appeared;  and  the  bank 
well  knows  that  he  will  never  come  to  sit 
59 


The  Double    Garden 

at  one  of  its  tables.  We  see,  therefore, 
how,  in  spite  of  all  his  pride  and  all  his 
hopes,  man  knows  that  he  can  know 
nothing. 

VI 
In  truth,  Chance,  in  the  sense  in  which 
the  gamblers  understand  it,  is  a  god  with- 
out existence.  They  worship  only  a  lie, 
which  each  of  them  pictures  to  himself  in  a 
different  shape.  Each  of  them  ascribes  to 
it  laws,  habits,  preferences  that  are  utterly 
contradictory,  as  a  whole,  and  purely 
imaginary.  According  to  some,  it  favours 
certain  numbers.  According  to  others,  it 
obeys  certain  rhythms  that  are  easily 
grasped.  According  to  others  again,  it  con- 
tains within  itself  a  sort  of  justice  that  ends 
by  giving  an  equal  value  to  each  group  of 
chances.  According  to  others,  lastly,  it  can- 
not possibly  favour  indefinitely  any  particu- 
lar series  of  simple  chances  for  the  benefit 
of  the  bank.  We  should  never  come  to  an 
60 


The  Temple  of  Chance 

end  if  we  tried  to  review  the  whole  illusory 
corpus  juris  of  roulette.  It  is  true  that,  in 
practice,  the  indefinite  repetition  of  the 
same  limited  accidents  necessarily  forms 
groups  of  coincidences  in  which  the  gam- 
bler's deluded  eye  seems  to  discern  some 
phantom  laws.  But  it  is  no  less  true  that, 
upon  trial,  at  the  moment  when  you  rely 
upon  the  assistance  of  the  surest  phantom, 
it  vanishes  abruptly  and  leaves  you  face  to 
face  with  the  unknown  which  it  was  mask- 
ing. For  the  rest,  most  gamblers  bring  to 
the  green  cloth  many  other  illusions,  con- 
scious or  instinctive,  and  infinitely  less  justi- 
fiable. Almost  all  persuade  themselves  that 
Chance  reserves  for  them  special  and  pre- 
meditated favours  or  misfortunes.  Almost 
all  imagine  some  undefined  but  plausible 
connection  to  exist  between  the  little  ivory 
sphere  and  their  presence,  their  passions, 
their  desires,  their  vices,  their  virtues,  their 
merits,  their  intellectual  or  moral  power, 
6i 


The   Double   Garden 

their  beauty,  their  genius,  the  enigma  of 
their  being,  their  future,  their  happiness  and 
their  life.  Is  it  necessary  to  say  that  there 
is  no  such  connection;  that  there  could  be 
none?  That  little  sphere  whose  judgment 
they  implore,  upon  which  they  hope  to  exer- 
cise an  occult  influence,  that  incorruptible 
little  ball  has  something  else  to  do  than  to 
occupy  itself  with  their  joys  and  sorrows. 
It  has  but  thirty  or  forty  seconds  of  move- 
ment and  of  life;  and,  during  those  thirty 
or  forty  seconds,  it  has  to  obey  more  eternal 
rules,  to  resolve  more  infinite  problems,  to 
accomplish  more  essential  duties  than 
would  ever  find  place  in  man's  consciousness 
or  comprehension.  It  has,  among  other 
enormous  and  difficult  things,  to  reconcile 
in  its  brief  course  those  two  incomprehensi- 
ble and  immeasurable  powers  which  are 
probably  the  biform  soul  of  the  Universe: 
centrifugal  force  and  centripetal  force.  It 
has  to  reckon  with  all  the  laws  of  gravita- 

68 


The  Temple  of  Chance 

tion,  friction,  the  resistance  of  the  air,  all 
the  phenomena  of  matter.  It  has  to  pay 
attention  to  the  smallest  incidents  of  the 
earth  or  sky ;  for  a  gambler  who  leaves  his 
seat  and  imperceptibly  disturbs  the  floor  of 
the  room,  or  a  star  that  rises  in  the  firma- 
ment, compels  it  to  modify  and  begin  anew 
the  whole  of  Its  mathematical  operations. 
It  has  no  time  to  play  the  part  of  a  goddess 
either  well  or  ill-disposed  towards  mortals; 
it  Is  forbidden  to  neglect  a  single  one  of  the 
numberless  formalities  which  Infinity  de- 
mands of  all  that  moves  within  It.  And, 
when,  at  last,  it  attains  its  goal,  it  has  per- 
formed the  same  Incalculable  work  as  the 
moon  or  the  other  cold  and  indifferent 
planets  that,  outside,  above.  In  the  trans- 
parent azure,  rise  majestically  over  the 
sapphire  and  silver  waters  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean. This  long  work  we  call  Chance, 
having  no  other  name  to  give  to  that  which 
we  do  not  as  yet  understand. 
63 


IN    PRAISE   OF  THE   SWORD  J 


IN  PRAISE  OF  THE  SWORD  1 
I 

MAN,  greedy  of  justice,  tries  in  a 
thousand  various  manners,  often 
empirical,  sometimes  wise,  whimsi- 
cal at  other  times  and  superstitious,  to  con- 
jure up  the  shade  of  the  great  goddess 
necessary  to  his  existence.  A  strange, 
elusive  and  yet  most  living  goddess!  An 
immaterial  divinity  that  cannot  stand 
upright  save  in  our  secret  heart;  one  of 
which  we  may  say  that,  the  more  visible 
temples  that  it  has,  the  less  real  power  it 
possesses.  A  day  will  break,  perhaps,  when 
it  shall  have  no  other  palaces  than  our 
several  consciences ;  and,  on  that  day,  it  will 
reign  really  in  the  silence  that  is  the  sacred 
element  of  its  life.  In  the  meanwhile,  we 
e7 


The  Double    Garden 

multiply  the  organs  through  which  we  hope 
that  it  will  make  itself  heard.  We  lend  it 
human  and  solemn  voices;  and  when  it  is 
silent  in  others  and  even  in  ourselves,  we 
proceed  to  question  it  beyond  our  own 
conscience,  on  the  uncertain  confines  of  our 
being,  where  we  become  a  part  of  chance 
and  where  we  believe  that  justice  blends 
with  God  and  our  own  destiny. 

II 

It  is  this  insatiable  need  which,  on  those 
points  where  human  justice  remained  dumb 
and  declared  itself  powerless,  appealed  in 
former  days  to  the  judgment  of  God.  To- 
day, when  the  idea  which  we  have  conceived 
of  the  divinity  has  changed  its  form  and 
nature,  the  same  instinct  persists,  so  deep, 
so  general,  that  it  is  perhaps  but  the  half- 
transparent  veil  of  an  approaching  truth. 
If  we  no  longer  look  to  God  to  approve  or 
condemn  that  which  men  are  unable  to 
68 


In  Praise  of  the  Sword! 

judge,  we  now  confide  that  mission  to  the 
unconscious,  incognizable  and,  so  to  speak, 
future  part  of  ourselves.  The  duel  invokes 
no  longer  the  judgment  of  God,  but  that  of 
our  future,  our  luck  or  our  destiny,  com- 
posed of  all  that  is  indefinite  within  us.  It 
is  called  upon,  in  the  name  of  our  good  or 
evil  possibilities,  to  declare  whether,  from 
the  point  of  view  of  inexplicable  life,  we 
are  wrong  or  right. 

There  we  have  the  indelibly  human  thing 
that  is  disengaged  from  amid  all  the 
absurdities  and  puerilities  of  our  present 
encounters.  However  unreasonable  it  may 
appear,  this  sort  of  supreme  interrogation, 
this  question  put  in  the  night  which  is  no 
longer  illumined  by  intelligible  justice,  can 
hardly  be  waived  so  long  as  we  have  not 
found  a  less  equivocal  manner  of  weighing 
the  rights  and  wrongs,  the  essential  hopes 
and  inequalities  of  two  destinies  that  wish 

to  confront  each  other. 
69 


The   Double    Garden 

III 

For  the  rest,  to  descend  to  the  practical 
point  of  view  from  these  regions  haunted 
by  more  or  less  dangerous  phantoms,  it  is 
certain  that  the  duel,  that  is  to  say  the 
possibility  of  securing  justice  for  one's  self 
outside  the  law  and  yet  according  to  rule, 
responds  to  a  need  of  which  we  cannot  deny 
the  existence.  For  we  live  in  the  midst  of 
a  society  that  does  not  protect  us  enough 
to  deprive  us,  In  all  circumstances,  of  the 
right  dearest  to  man's  instinct. 

It  is  unnecessary,  I  think,  to  enumerate 
the  cases  in  which  the  protection  afforded 
by  society  is  insufficient.  It  would  take  less 
long  to  name  those  in  which  it  suffices. 
Doubtless,  for  men  who  are  lawfully  weak 
and  defenceless,  it  would  be  desirable  that 
things  were  different;  but  for  those  who  are 
capable  of  defending  themselves  It  is  most 
salutary  that  things  should  be  as  they  are, 
70 


In  Praise  of  the  Sword ! 

for  nothing  suppresses  initiative  and  per- 
sonal character  so  greatly  as  does  a 
too-zealous  and  too-constant  protection. 
Remember  that,  before  all,  we  are  beings  of 
prey  and  strife;  that  we  must  be  careful  not 
completely  to  extinguish  within  ourselves 
the  qualities  of  primitive  man,  for  it  was 
not  without  reason  that  nature  placed  them 
there.  If  it  is  wise  to  restrain  their  excess, 
it  is  prudent  to  preserve  their  principle. 
We  do  not  know  the  offensive  tricks  which 
the  elements  or  the  other  forces  of  the 
universe  have  in  store  for  us;  and  woe  be 
to  us,  in  all  likelihood,  if  one  day  they  find 
us  entirely  devoid  of  the  spirit  of  ven- 
geance, mistrust,  anger,  brutality,  com- 
batlveness,  and  of  many  other  faults, 
which  are  all  very  blameworthy  from  the 
human  point  of  view,  but  which,  far  more 
than  the  most  loudly-extolled  abstemious 
virtues,  have  helped  us  to  conquer  the  great 
enemies  of  our  kind. 
71 


The    Double  Garden 

IV 

It  behoves  us,  therefore,  in  general,  to 
praise  those  who  do  not  allow  themselves  to 
be  offended  with  impunity.  They  keep  up 
among  us  an  idea  of  extra-legal  justice  by 
which  we  all  profit  and  which  would  soon 
become  exhausted  without  their  aid.  Let 
us  rather  deplore  that  they  are  not  more 
numerous.  If  there  were  not  quite  so  many 
good-natured  souls,  capable  of  chastising, 
but  too  ready  to  forgive,  we  should  find  far 
fewer  evil-doers  too  ready  to  do  wrong ;  for 
three-quarter's  of  the  wrong  that  is  com- 
mitted springs  from  the  certainty  of 
impunity.  In  order  to  maintain  the  vague 
fear  and  respect  that  allow  the  unfortunate 
unarmed  to  live  and  breathe  almost  freely 
in  a  society  teeming  with  knaves  and 
dastards,  it  is  the  strict  duty  of  all  who  are 
able  to  resist  unpunishable  injustice  by 
means  of  an  act  of  violence  never  fail  to 
7a 


In  Praise  of  the  Sword! 

do  so.  They  thus  restore  the  level  of 
immanent  justice.  Thinking  that  they  are 
defending  only  themselves,  they  defend  in 
the  aggregate  the  most  precious  heritage  of 
mankind.  I  do  not  contend  that  it  would 
not  be  better,  in  the  greater  number  of 
cases,  that  the  courts  should  intervene ;  but, 
until  our  laws  become  simpler,  more  practi- 
cal, less  costly  and  more  familiar,  we  have 
no  other  remedy  than  the  fist  or  the  sword 
against  a  number  of  iniquities  that  are  very 
real,  although  not  provided  for  by  our 
codes. 


The  fist  is  quick,  immediate ;  but  it  is  not 
conclusive  enough ;  when  the  offence  is  at  all 
grave,  we  see  that  it  is  really  too  lenient  and 
ephemeral;  and,  besides,  it  has  always 
movements  that  are  a  little  vulgar  and 
effects  that  are  somewhat  repugnant.  It 
brings  only  a  brutal  faculty  into  play.  It  is 
73 


The    Double  Garden 

the  blindest  and  most  unequal  of  weapons; 
and,  since  it  evades  all  the  conditions  that 
adjust  the  chances  of  two  ill-matched 
adversaries,  it  involves  exaggerated  repris- 
als on  the  part  of  the  beaten  combatant, 
which  end  by  arming  him  with  the  stick,  the 
knife  or  the  revolver. 

It  is  allowable  in  certain  countries,  in 
England,  for  instance.  There  the  science 
of  boxing  forms  part  of  the  elementary  edu- 
cation and  its  general  practice  tends  in  a 
curious  way  to  remove  natural  inequalities; 
moreover,  a  whole  organism  of  clubs, 
paternal  juries  and  tribunals  easy  of  access 
confirms  or  forestalls  its  exploits.  But  in 
France  it  would  be  a  pity  to  return  to  it. 
The  sword,  which  has  there  replaced  it 
since  immemorial  days,  is  an  incomparably 
more  sensitive,  serious,  graceful  and  deli- 
cate instrument  of  justice.  It  is  reproached 
with  being  neither  equitable  nor  probative. 
But  it  proves  first  of  all  the  quality  of  our 
74 


In  Praise  of  the  Sword! 

attitude  in  the  face  of  danger;  and  that 
already  is  a  proof  which  is  not  without  its 
value.  For  our  attitude  in  the  face  of 
danger  is  exactly  our  attitude  in  the  face  of 
the  reproaches  or  encouragements  of  the 
various  consciences  that  lie  hidden  within 
us,  of  those  which  are  both  below  and  above 
our  intelligible  conscience  and  which  mingle 
with  the  essential  and,  so  to  speak,  universal 
elements  of  our  being.  Next,  it  depends 
only  upon  ourselves  that  it  should  become 
as  equitable  as  any  human  instrument,  ever 
subject  to  chance,  error  and  weakness,  can 
be.  Its  art  is  certainly  accessible  to  every 
healthy  man.  It  demands  neither  abnormal 
muscular  strength  nor  exceptional  agility. 
The  least  gifted  of  us  need  devote  to  it  no 
more  than  two  or  three  hours  of  every 
week.  He  will  acquire  a  suppleness  and 
a  precision,  sufficient  soon  to  discover  what 
the  astronomers  call  his  "personal  equa- 
tion," to  attain  his  individual  average, 
75 


The    Double  Garden 

which  is  at  the  same  time  a  general  average 
that  only  a  few  fire-eaters,  a  few  idlers 
succeed  in  surpassing,  at  the  cost  of  long, 
painful  and  very  ungrateful  efforts. 

VI 

Having  attained  this  average,  we  can 
entrust  our  lives  to  the  point  of  the  frail 
but  formidable  sword.  It  is  the  magician 
that  at  once  establishes  new  relations 
between  two  forces  which  none  would  have 
dreamt  of  comparing.  It  allows  the  pigmy 
who  is  in  the  right  to  confront  the  colossus 
who  is  in  the  wrong.  It  gracefully  leads 
enormous  violence,  horned  like  the  bull,  to 
lighter  and  brighter  summits;  and  behold, 
the  primitive  animal  is  obliged  to  stand 
still  before  a  power  that  has  nothing  left  in 
common  with  the  mean,  shapeless,  tyran- 
nical virtues  of  earth :  I  mean  weight,  mass, 
quantity,  the  stupid  cohesion  of  matter. 
Between  the  sword  and  the  fist  lie  the 
76 


In  Praise  of  the  Sword! 

breadth  of  a  universe,  an  ocean  of  centuries 
and  almost  as  great  a  distance  as  separates 
beast  from  man.  The  sword  is  iron  and 
wit,  steel  and  intelligence.  It  makes  the 
muscles  subservient  to  thought  and  compels 
thought  to  respect  the  muscles  that  serve  it. 
It  is  ideal  and  practical,  chimerical  and  full 
of  good  sense.  It  is  dazzling  and  clear  as 
lightning,  insinuating,  elusive  and  multi- 
form as  a  ray  of  the  sun  or  moon.  It  is 
faithful  and  capricious,  nobly  guileful, 
loyally  false.  It  decks  rancour  and  hatred 
with  a  smile.  It  transfigures  brutality. 
Thanks  to  the  sword,  reason,  courage, 
rightful  assurance,  patience,  contempt  of 
danger,  man's  sacrifice  to  love,  to  an  idea, 
a  whole  moral  world,  in  short,  as  by  a  fairy 
bridge  swung  over  the  abyss  of  darkness, 
enters  as  the  master  into  the  original  chaos, 
reduces  and  organizes  it.  The  sword  is 
man's  pre-eminent  weapon,  that  weapon 
which,  were  all  the  others  tried  and  itself 
17 


The    jjouble  Garden 

unknown,  would  have  to  be  invented,  be- 
cause it  best  serves  his  most  various,  his 
most  purely  human  faculties  and  because 
it  is  the  most  direct,  the  most  tractable  and 
the  most  loyal  instrument  of  his  defensive 
intelligence,  strength  and  justice. 

VII 

But  what  Is  most  admirable  is  that  its 
decisions  are  not  mechanical  nor  mathemat- 
ically pre-established.  In  this  it  resembles 
those  pastimes  in  which  chance  and  know- 
ledge are  marvellously  mingled  in  order  to 
question  our  fortune:  pastimes  almost 
mystical  and  always  enthralling,  in  which 
man  delights  to  sound  his  luck  on  the  con- 
fines of  his  existence. 

Bring  face  to  face  two  adversaries  of 
manifestly  unequal  powers:  It  is  not  inevita- 
ble, it  is  not  even  certain  that  the  more  vig- 
orous and  the  more  skilful  will  gain  the 
day  over  the  other.  Once  that  we  have 
78 


In  Praise  of  the  Sword! 

conquered  our  personal  mastership,  our 
sword  becomes  ourself,  with  our  qualities 
and  our  defects.  It  is  our  firmness,  our 
devotion,  our  will,  our  daring,  our  convic- 
tion, our  justice,  our  hesitation,  our  im- 
patience, our  fear.  We  have  cultivated  it 
with  care.  We  have  risen  to  the  height  of 
the  possibilities  which  it  was  able  to  offer 
us.  We  have  given  it  all  that  we  were  able 
to  dispose  of;  it  restores  to  us  integrally  all 
that  we  entrusted  to  it.  We  have  nothing 
wherewith  to  reproach  ourselves;  we  are  in 
accord  with  the  instinct  and  duty  of  self- 
preservation.  But  the  sword  represents 
something  more,  and  exactly  that  part  of 
us  which  we  are  compelled  to  risk  at  the 
graver  moments  of  existence.  It  personifies 
an  unknown  portion  of  our  being  and  per- 
sonifies it  in  the  most  favourable  and  solemn 
conjuncture  that  man  can  imagine  wherein 
to  call  upon  his  destiny,  that  is  to  say,  in  cir- 
cumstances in  which  the  mysterious  entity 
79 


The  Double    Garden 

that  lives  within  him  is  directly  seconded 
by  all  the  faculties  subjected  to  his  con- 
sciousness. 

It  thus  brings  face  to  face  not  only  two 
forces,  two  intelligences  and  two  liberties, 
but  also  two  chances,  two  fortunes,  two 
mysteries,  two  destinies,  which,  over  and 
above  the  rest,  like  the  gods  of  Homer,  pre- 
side over  the  combat,  run,  flash,  dart  and 
meet  upon  its  blade.  When  it  seems  to  be 
striking  before  us  in  space,  it  is  really 
knocking  at  the  doors  of  our  fate;  and, 
while  death  hovers  around  it,  he  who  han- 
dles it  feels  that  it  is  escaping  from  its  pre- 
vious bondage  and  suddenly  obeying  other 
laws  than  those  which  used  to  guide  it  in 
the  fencing-school.  It  fulfils  a  secret  mis- 
sion; before  pronouncing  sentence,  it 
judges  us;  or  rather,  by  the  mere  fact  that 
we  are  wielding  it  distractedly  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  great  and  formidable  enigma, 

it  forces  our  destiny  to  judge  ourselves. 
80 


DEATH   AND   THE   CROWN 


DEATH   AND   THE    CROWN 
I 

THE  months  of  June  and  July  of  the 
year  1902  set  for  the  meditation  of 
men  one  of  those  tragic  spectacles 
which,  to  speak  truly,  we  encounter  every 
day  in  the  little  life  that  surrounds  us, 
although,  like  so  many  great  things,  they 
there  pass  unperceived.  They  do  not 
assume  their  full  significance,  nor  finally 
capture  our  gaze,  except  when  performed 
on  one  of  those  enormous  stages  on  which 
are  heaped,  so  to  speak,  all  the  thoughts  of 
a  people  and  on  which  the  latter  loves  to 
behold  its  own  existence  made  greater  and 
more  solemn  by  royal  actors. 

As  is  said  in  a  modern  play,  "We  must 
add  something  to  ordinary  life  before  we 
83 


The   Double    Garden 

can  understand  it."  Fate  added,  in  this 
case,  the  power  and  the  pomp  of  one  of 
the  most  glorious  thrones  on  earth. 
Thanks  to  the  resplendency  of  that  pomp 
and  that  power,  we  saw  exactly  what  a  man 
is  in  himself  and  what  he  remains  when  the 
imposing  laws  of  nature  strip  him  cruelly 
naked  before  their  tribunal.  We  learnt 
also — the  force  of  love,  pity,  religion  and 
science  having  been  suddenly  exerted  to  the 
utmost — we  learnt  also  to  know  better  the 
value  of  the  aid  which  all  that  we  have 
acquired  since  we  inhabited  this  planet  can 
give  in  our  distress.  We  assisted  at  a  strug- 
gle, ever  confused,  but  as  fierce  as  though 
it  were  doomed  to  be  supreme,  between  the 
different  powers,  physical  and  moral,  visible 
and  invisible,  that  to-day  guide  mankind. 

II 

Edward  VII.  King  of  England,  the  illus- 
trious victim  of  a  whim  of  fate,  lay  piti- 
84 


Death  and  the  Crown 

fully  hovering  between  the  crown  and 
death.  This  fate,  with  one  hand,  held  to  his 
brow  one  of  the  most  magnificent  diadems 
that  the  revolutions  have  spared ;  and,  with 
the  other,  it  forced  that  same  brow,  moist 
with  the  sweat  of  the  death-agony,  to  bend 
down  towards  a  wide-open  tomb.  In  sin- 
ister fashion,  it  prolonged  this  game  for 
more  than  two  months. 

If  we  contemplate  the  event  from  a 
point  a  little  higher  than  the  elevation  of 
the  humble  hills  on  which  life's  numberless 
anecdotes  unfold  themselves,  it  is  here  not 
only  a  question  of  the  tragedy  of  an  opulent 
monarch  stricken  by  nature  at  the  very 
moment  when  thousands  of  men  are  aspir- 
ing to  place  some  small  portion  of  their 
hopes  and  of  their  fairest  dreams  in  his 
person,  beyond  the  reach  of  destiny  and 
above  humanity.  Neither  is  it  a  question  of 
appreciating  the  irony  of  that  moment  in 
which  they  would  assert  and  establish 
85 


The    Double   Garden 

something  supernatural  that  declined 
upon  something  most  normally  natural; 
something  that  should  be  contradictory  to 
the  pitiless  levelling  laws  of  the  indifferent 
planet  which  we  all  inhabit  with  a  sort  of 
heedless  tolerance;  something  that  should 
reassure  them  and  console  them  as  an 
admirable  exception  to  their  misery  and 
frailty.  No,  it  is  here  a  question  of  the 
essential  tragedy  of  man,  of  the  universal 
and  perpetual  drama  enacted  between  his 
feeble  will  and  the  enormous  unknown  force 
that  encompasses  him,  between  the  little 
flame  of  his  mind  or  soul,  that  inexplicable 
phenomenon  of  nature,  and  vast  matter, 
that  other,  equally  inexplicable,  phenome- 
non of  the  same  nature.  This  drama,  with 
its  thousand  undetermined  catastrophes,  has 
not  ceased  to  unfold  Itself  for  a  single  day 
since  a  portion  of  blind  and  colossal  life 
conceived  the  somewhat  strange  idea  of 
taking  in  us  a  sort  of  consciousness  of  itself. 
86 


Death  and  the  Crown 

This  time,  a  more  resplendent  accident  than 
the  others  came  to  display  the  drama  on  a 
loftier  height,  which  was  illumined  for  an 
instant  by  all  the  longings,  all  the  wishes, 
all  the  fears,  all  the  uncertainties,  all  the 
prayers,  all  the  doubts,  all  the  illusions,  all 
the  wills,  all  the  looks,  lastly,  of  the  inhabi- 
tants of  our  globe  hastening  in  thought  to 
the  foot  of  the  solemn  mountain. 

Ill 

Slowly,  then,  it  unfolded  itself  up  there; 
and  we  were  able  to  compute  our  resources. 
We  had  the  opportunity  to  weigh  in  lumin- 
ous scales  our  illusions  and  our  realities. 
All  the  confidence  and  all  the  wretchedness 
of  our  kind  were  symbolically  concentrated 
in  a  single  hour  and  in  a  single  being. 
Would  it  be  proved  once  more  that  the 
longings,  the  most  ardent  wishes,  the  will 
and  the  most  imperious  love  of  a  prodigious 
87 


The    Double  Garden 

assembly  of  men  are  powerless  to  cause  the 
most  insignificant  of  physical  laws  to  swerve 
by  one  line's  breadth  ?  Would  it  be  estab- 
lished once  more  that,  when  standing  in  the 
face  of  nature,  we  must  seek  our  defensive 
laws  not  in  the  moral  or  sentimental,  but  in 
another  world  ?  It  is  salutary  therefore  to 
look  at  that  which  happened  upon  that 
summit  firmly  and  with  an  eye  that  no 
longer  attributes  things  to  spells. 

IV 

Some  beheld  in  it  the  mighty  manifesta- 
tion of  a  jealous  and  all-powerful  God,  Who 
holds  us  in  His  hand  and  laughs  at  our 
poor  glory;  the  scornful  gesture  of  a 
Providence  too  long  neglected  and  incensed 
because  man  does  not  recognize  with 
greater  docility  Its  hidden  existence  nor 
fathom  more  easily  Its  enigmatic  will. 
Were  they  mistaken?    And  who  are  they 


Death  and  the  Crown 

that  are  never  mistaken  in  the  darkness  that 
is  over  us  ?  But  why  does  this  God,  more 
perfect  than  men,  ask  of  us  what  a  perfect 
man  would  not  ask  ?  Why  does  He  make 
a  too  willing,  an  almost  blindly  accepted 
faith  the  first,  the  most  necessary  and 
indeed  the  only  virtue?  If  He  is  incensed 
because  He  is  not  understood,  because  He  is 
disobeyed,  would  it  not  be  just  that  He 
should  manifest  Himself  in  such  a  manner 
that  human  reason,  which  He  Himself 
created  with  its  admirable  demands, 
should  not  have  to  surrender  the  most 
precious,  the  most  essential  of  its  privileges 
in  order  to  approach  His  throne?  Now 
was  this  gesture,  like  so  many  others,  clear 
enough,  significant  enough  to  force  reason 
to  its  knees  ?  And  yet,  if  He  loves  that  man 
should  adore  Him,  as  those  who  speak  in 
His  name  proclaim,  it  would  be  easy  for 
Him  to  constrain  us  all  to  adore  Him 
alone.  We  only  await  an  unexceptionable 
89 


The    Double  Garden 

sign.  In  the  name  of  that  direct  reflection 
of  His  light  which  He  has  set  at  the  top- 
most point  of  our  being,  where  burns,  with 
an  ardour,  with  a  purity  that  grow  fairer 
day  by  day,  the  single  passion  for  certainty 
and  truth,  does  it  not  seem  that  we  have  a 
right  to  it? 


Others  contemplated  this  King  gasping 
for  breath  on  the 'steps  of  the  most  splen- 
did throne  that  still  remains  standing,  this 
almost  infinite  power,  shattered,  broken,  a 
prey  to  the  dreadful  enemies  that  assail 
suffering  flesh,  flesh  destroyed  under  the 
most  dazzling  crown  that  the  invisible  and 
mocking  hand  of  chance  has  ever  suspended 
over  a  confused  heap  of  anguish  and  dis- 
tress. .  .  . 

They  saw  in  it  a  new  and  terrifying  proof 
of  wretchedness,  of  human  uselessness. 
They  went  about  repeating  to  themselves 
90 


Death  and  the  Crown 

what  the  wisdom  of  antiquity  had  already 
so  well  said,  to  wit  that  we  are,  that  we 
probably  always  shall  be,  despite  all  our 
efforts,  "but  a  grain  in  the  proportion  of 
substance  and  but  the  turning  of  a  wimble 
in  respect  of  time."  Unbelieving  in  God, 
but  believing  in  His  shadow,  they  discov- 
ered in  this,  perhaps,  a  mysterious  decree  of 
that  mysterious  Justice  which  sometimes 
comes  to  place  a  little  order  in  the  shape- 
less history  of  men  and  to  take  vengeance 
on  the  .kings  for  the  iniquity  of  the 
nations.  .  .  . 

They  found  in  it  many  other  things 
besides.  They  were  not  mistaken ;  all  those 
things  were  there,  because  they  are  in  our- 
selves and  because  the  sense  that  we  give 
to  the  incomprehensible  actions  of  unknown 
forces  soon  becomes  the  sole  human  reality 
and  peoples  with  more  or  less  fraternal 
spectres  the  indifference  and  the  nothing- 
ness that  surround  us. 
91 


The   Double    Garden 

VI 

As  for  us,  without  rejecting  those' seduc- 
tive or  terrible  spectres,  which  perhaps 
represent  interventions  of  which  our  instinct 
has  a  presentiment,  though  our  senses  do 
not  perceive  them,  let  us,  before  all,  fix  our 
eyes  on  the  really  human  and  certain  parts 
of  that  great  accomplished  drama.  In  the 
centre  of  the  obscure  cloud  wherein  were 
amplified,  until  they  exceeded  the  confines 
of  this  terrestrial  world,  the  acts  of  the 
power  that,  turn  by  turn,  brought  nearer 
and  separated  a  solemn  death  and  an 
illusive  crown,  we  distinguish  a  man  who  is 
at  last  about  to  attain  the  sole  object,  the 
essential  moment  of  his  life.  Suddenly,  an 
unseen  enemy  attacks  him  and  lays  him  low. 
Forthwith,  other  men  run  up.  They  are 
the  princes  of  Science.  They  do  not  ask  if 
it  be  God,  Destiny,  Chance,  Justice  that 
comes  to  obstruct  the  road  of  the  victim 
92 


Death  and  the  Crown 

whom  they  raise.  Believers  or  unbelievers 
in  other  spheres  or  at  other  moments,  they 
put  no  questions  to  the  murky  cloud.  They 
are  here  the  qualified  envoys  of  the  reason 
of  our  kind,  of  naked  reason,  abandoned  to 
itself  as  it  wanders  alone  in  a  monstrous 
universe.  Deliberately,  they  cast  off  from 
it  sentiment,  imagination,  all  that  does  not 
properly  belong  to  it.  They  use  only  the 
purely  human,  almost  animal  portion  of  its 
flame,  as  though  they  had  the  certainty  that 
every  being  can  vanquish  a  force  of  nature 
only  by  the,  so  to  speak,  specific  force  which 
nature  has  set  within  him.  Thus  handled, 
this  flame  is  perhaps  narrow  and  weak,  but 
precise,  exclusive,  invincible  as  that  of  the 
blow-pipe  of  the  enameller  or  the  chemist. 
It  is  fed  with  facts,  with  minute,  but  sure 
and  innumerable  observations.  It  lights 
only  insignificant  and  successive  points  in 
the  immense  unknown ;  but  it  does  not  stray, 
it  goes  where  it  is  directed  by  the  keen  eye 
93 


The    Double  Garden 

that  guides  it,  and  the  point  which  it 
reaches  is  screened  from  the  influences  once 
called  supernatural.  Humbly  it  interrupts 
or  diverts  the  order  pre-established  by 
nature.  Scarce  two  or  three  years  ago,  it 
would  have  been  deranged  and  scattered 
before  the  same  enigma.  Its  luminous  ray 
had  not  yet  settled  with  sufficient  rigidity 
and  obstinacy  on  that  dark  point;  and  we 
should  have  once  more  said  that  Fatality  is 
invincible.  But,  now,  it  held  history  and 
destiny  in  suspense  for  several  weeks  and 
ended  by  casting  them  without  the  brass- 
bound  track  which  they  reckoned  to  follow 
to  the  end.  Henceforth,  if  God,  Chance, 
Justice,  or  whatever  name  we  may  give  to 
the  hidden  idea  of  the  universe,  wish  to 
attain  their  object,  to  go  their  way  and 
triumph  as  before,  they  can  follow  other 
roads;  but  this  one  remains  forbidden  to 
them.  In  future,  they  will  have  to  avoid 
the    imperceptible    but    insuperable    cleft 

94 


Death  and  the  Crown 

where  will   always  watch  the  little  jet  of 
flame  that  turned  them  back. 

It  is  possible  that  this  royal  tragedy  has 
definitely  proved  to  us  that  wishes,  love, 
pity,  prayers,  a  whole  portion  of  man's 
finest  moral  forces,  are  powerless  in  the  face 
of  one  exercise  of  the  will  of  nature.  Imme- 
diately, as  though  to  make  good  the  loss  and 
to  maintain  the  rights  of  mind  over  matter 
at  the  necessary  level,  another  moral  force, 
or  rather  the  same  flame  assuming  another 
form,  shoots  up,  shines  forth  and  triumphs. 
Man  loses  an  illusion  to  gain  a  certainty. 
Far  from  descending,  he  rises  by  one  step 
among  the  unconscious  forces.  We  have 
here,  in  spite  of  all  the  misery  that  sur- 
rounds it,  a  great  and  noble  spectacle  and 
something  wherewith  to  arrest  the  attention 
of  those  who  would  lose  confidence  in  the 
destinies  of  our  kind. 


95 


UNIVERSAL  SUFFRAGE 


UNIVERSAL   SUFFRAGE 
I 

IT  seems  that  gradually  all  Is  tending 
with  one  accord  to  prove  that  the  last 
truths  are  at  the  extreme  points  of 
thoughts  which  man  has  hitherto  refused  to 
explore.  This  may  be  stated  with  regard  to 
both  moral  and  positive  science;  nor  is 
there  any  reason  against  adding  to  these 
the  science  of  politics,  which  Is  only  a  pro- 
longation of  moral  science. 

For  centuries,  mankind  has,  in  a  measure, 
lived  in  a  half-way  house.  A  thousand 
prejudices  and,  above  all,  the  enormous 
prejudices  of  religion  hid  from  it  the  sum- 
mits of  its  reason  and  of  its  feelings.  Now 
that  the  greater  number  of  the  artificial 
mountains  that  rose  between  its  eyes  and 

99 


The    Double  Garden 

the  real  horizon  of  its  mind  have,  in  a 
marked  manner,  subsided,  it  takes  stock  at 
once  of  itself,  of  its  position  in  the  midst  of 
the  worlds  and  of  the  aim  which  it  wishes 
to  attain.  It  is  beginning  to  understand 
that  all  that  does  not  go  as  far  as  the  logical 
conclusions  of  its  intelligence  is  but  a  useless 
game  by  the  way-side.  It  says  to  itself  that 
it  will  have  to  cover  to-morrow  the  road 
which  it  did  not  travel  to-day  and  that,  in 
the  meantime,  by  thus  wasting  its  time 
between  every  stage,  it  has  nothing  to  gain 
but  a  little  delusive  peace. 

It  is  written  in  our  nature  that  we  are 
extreme  beings;  that  is  our  force  and  the 
cause  of  our  progress.  We  necessarily  and 
Instinctively  fly  to  the  utmost  limits  of  our 
being.  We  do  not  feel  ourselves  to  live 
and  we  are  unable  to  organize  a  life  that 
shall  satisfy  us,  except  upon  the  confines  of 
our  possibilities.  Thanks  to  that  self- 
enlightening  instinct,  there  is  a  more  and 

100 


Universal  Suffrage 

more  unanimous  tendency  to  stop  no  longer 
at  intermediate  solutions,  to  avoid  hence- 
forth all  half-way  experiments  or  at  least 
to  hurry  through  them  as  rapidly  as 
possible. 

II 

This  does  not  mean  that  our  tendency 
towards  extremes  is  enough  to  guide  us  to 
definite  certainties.  There  are  always  two 
extremes  between  which  we  have  to  choose ; 
and  it  is  often  difficult  to  decide  which  is 
the  starting-point  and  which  the  final  goal. 
In  morals,  for  instance,  we  have  to  choose 
between  absolute  egotism  or  altruism  and 
in  politics  between  the  best-organized  gov- 
ernment that  it  is  possible  to  imagine, 
directing  and  protecting  the  smallest  acts 
of  our  life,  or  the  absence  of  all  govern- 
ment. The  two  questions  are  still  insoluble. 
Nevertheless,  we  are  free  to  believe  that 
absolute    altruism    is   more    extreme    and 

lOI 


The    Double    Garden 

nearer  to  our  end  than  absolute 
egotism,  in  the  same  way  as  anarchy 
is  more  extreme  and  nearer  to  the 
perfection  of  our  kind  than  the  most 
minutely  and  irreproachably  organized  gov- 
ernment, such  as,  for  instance,  one  might 
imagine  to  prevail  at  the  last  limits  of 
integral  socialism.  We  are  free  to  believe 
this,  because  absolute  altruism  and  anarchy 
are  the  extreme  forms  that  demand  the 
most  perfect  man.  Now  it  is  towards 
perfect  man  that  we  must  turn  our  gaze; 
for  it  is  in  that  direction  that  we  must  hope 
that  mankind  is  moving.  Experience  still 
shows  that  we  risk  less  by  keeping  our  eyes 
before  us  than  by  keeping  them  behind  us, 
less  by  looking  too  high  than  by  not  looking 
high  enough.  All  that  we  have  obtained 
so  far  has  been  announced  and,  so  to  speak, 
called  forth  by  those  who  were  accused  of 
looking  too  high.  It  is  wise,  therefore, 
when  in  doubt,  to  attach  one's  self  to  the 

102 


Universal  Suffrage 

extreme  that  implies  the  most  perfect,  the 
most  noble  and  the  most  generous  form  of 
mankind.  Thus  it  was  that  this  reply 
could  be  given  to  one  who  asked  whether 
it  were  well  to  grant  to  men,  in  spite  of 
their  present  imperfections,  the  most  com- 
plete possible  liberty: 

"Yes,  it  is  the  duty  of  all  whose 
thoughts  go  before  the  inconscient  mass  to 
destroy  all  that  trammels  the  liberty  of 
men,  as  if  all  men  deserved  to  be  free,  even 
though  we  know  that  they  will  not  deserve 
to  be  so  until  long  after  their  deliverance. 
The  harmonious  use  of  liberty  is  acquired 
only  by  a  long  misuse  of  its  benefits.  By 
proceeding  at  the  first  to  the  most  distant 
and  highest  ideal  we  have  the  greatest 
chance  of  afterwards  discovering  the  best." 

And  what  is  true  of  liberty  is  also  true 
of  the  other  rights  of  man. 


103 


The   Double    Garden 

III 

In  order  to  apply  this  principle  to  uni- 
versal suffrage,  let  us  recall  the  political 
evolution  of  modern  nations.  It  follows  a 
uniform  and  inflexible  curve.  One  by  one, 
these  nations  escape  from  tyranny.  A  more 
or  less  aristocratic  or  plutocratic  govern- 
ment, elected  by  a  restricted  suffrage, 
replaces  the  autocrat.  This  government,  in 
its  turn,  makes  way,  or  is  almost  everywhere 
on  the  point  of  making  way  for  the  govern- 
ment of  all  by  universal  suffrage.  Where 
will  the  latter  end?  Will  it  bring  us  back 
to  tyranny?  Will  it  turn  into  a  graduated 
suffrage?  Will  it  become  a  sort  of 
mandarinate,  the  government  of  a  chosen 
few,  or  an  organized  anarchy?  We  can 
not  yet  tell,  no  nation  having  hitherto  gone 
beyond  the  phase  of  the  suffrage  of  all. 


M4 


Universal  Suffrage 

IV 

Almost  everywhere,  in  obedience  to  the 
now  so  active  law  that  carries  us  to 
extremes,  men  are  hurrying  along  at  full 
speed  the  sooner  to  reach  what  appears 
to  be  the  last  political  Ideal  of  the  na- 
tions, universal  suffrage.  Since  this  Ideal 
still  completely  masks  the  better  Ideal  that 
probably  lies  hidden  behind  It  and  since  It 
does  not  appear  what  It  perhaps  Is,  a  provi- 
sional solution,  it  will,  until  we  have 
exhausted  all  the  Illusions  which  It  contains, 
hold  the  gaze  and  wishes  of  humanity.  It 
is  the  necessary  goal,  good  or  bad,  towards 
which  the  nations  are  advancing.  It  is 
Indispensable  to  the  instinctive  justice  of  the 
mass  that  the  evolution  should  be  accom- 
plished. Anything  that  trammels  It  Is  but 
an  ephemeral  obstacle.  Anything  that  pre- 
tends to  Improve  that  Ideal  before  it  has 
been  attained  drives  It  back  towards  the 
105 


The    Double    Garden 

error  of  the  past.  Like  every  universal  and 
imperious  ideal,  like  every  ideal  formed  in 
the  depth  of  anonymous  life,  it  has  first 
of  all  the  right  to  see  itself  realized.  If, 
after  its  realization,  it  should  become 
apparent  that  the  ideal  does  not  fulfil  its 
promise,  it  will  then  be  meet  that  we 
should  think  of  perfecting  or  replacing  it. 
In  the  meantime,  this  fact  is  inscribed  in 
the  Instinct  of  the  mass,  as  indestructibly  as 
In  bronze,  that  all  nations  have  the  natural 
right  to  pass  through  this  phase  of  the 
political  evolution  of  the  human  polypier 
and,  each  in  its  turn,  each  in  its  own 
language,  with  its  particular  virtues  and 
faults,  to  interrogate  the  possibilities  of 
happiness  which  it  brings. 

That  is  why,  full  of  the  duty  of  living, 
this  Ideal  is  most  justly  jealous.  Intolerant 
and  unreasonable.  Like  every  youthful 
organism,  it  violently  eliminates  all  that  can 
impair  the  purity  of  Its  blood.  It  is  possible 
io6 


Universal  Suffrage 

that  the  elements  borrowed  from  monarchy 
and  aristocracy  which  men  endeavour  to 
introduce  Into  its  adolescent  veins  are  excel- 
lent in  themselves;  but  they  are  injurious 
to  it  because  they  inoculate  it  with  the  ill 
of  which  it  has  first  to  be  cured.  Before 
the  government  of  all  can  be  made  wiser, 
more  limpid  and  more  harmonious  by  the 
admixture  of  other  systems,  it  must  have 
purified  itself  by  its  own  fermentation. 
After  it  has  rid  itself  of  every  trace,  of 
every  memory  of  the  past,  after  it  has 
reigned  in  the  certainty  and  integrity  of  its 
force,  then  will  be  the  time  to  invite  it  to 
choose  in  the  past  that  which  concerns  its 
future.  It  will  take  of  this  according  to 
its  natural  appetite,  which,  like  the  natural 
appetite  of  every  living  being,  knows  with 
a  sure  knowledge  what  is  indispensable  to 
the  mystery  of  life. 


107 


The  Double   Garden 


The  nations  are  right  therefore  in  provi- 
sionally rejecting  that  which  is,  perhaps, 
better  than  universal  suffrage.  It  is  pos- 
sible that  the  crowd  will  eventually  admit 
that  the  more  highly  intelligent  discern  and 
govern  the  common  weal  better  than  the 
others.  It  will  then  grant  them  a  lawful 
preponderance.  For  the  moment,  it  does 
not  give  them  a  thought.  It  has  not  had 
time  to  learn  to  know  itself.  It  has  not  had 
time  to  exhaust  experiments  which  appear 
absurd,  but  which  are  necessary  because 
they  clear  the  place  in  which  the  last  truths 
without  doubt  lie  hidden. 

It  is  with  nations  as  with  individuals: 
that  which  tells  is  what  they  learn  by  them- 
selves, at  their  own  cost;  and  their  mistakes 
form  the  heritage  of  the  future.  It  serves 
no  purpose  to  say  to  a  .man  in  his  childhood 
or  in  his  youth : 

io8 


Universal  Suffrage 

"Do  not  lie,  do  not  deceive,  cause  no 
suffering." 

Those  precepts  of  wisdom,  which  are  at 
the  same  time  precepts  of  happiness,  do  not 
impress  him,  do  not  feed  his  thoughts,  do 
not  become  beneficent  realities  until  after 
the  moment  when  life  has  revealed  them  to 
him  as  new  and  magnificent  truths  which  no 
one  ever  suspected.  In  the  same  way,  it  is 
useless  to  repeat  to  a  nation  that  is  seeking 
out  its  destiny: 

"Do  not  believe  that  the  multitude  iv 
right,  that  a  lie  stated  by  a  hundred  mouthi; 
ceases  to  be  a  lie,  that  an  error  proclaimed 
by  a  band  of  blind  men  becomes  a  truth 
which  nature  will  sanction.  Do  not  believe, 
either,  that,  by  setting  yourselves  to  the 
number  of  ten  thousand  who  do  not  know 
against  one  who  knows,  you  will  come 
to  know  anything,  or  that  you  will  compel 
the  humblest  of  the  eternal  laws  to  follow 
you,  to  abandon  him  who  recognized  it. 
109 


The    Double  Garden 

No,  the  law  will  remain  in  its  place,  with 
the  wise  man  who  discovered  it,  and  so 
much  the  worse  for  you  if  you  go  away 
without  accepting  it  I  You  will  one  day 
come  across  it  on  your  road,  and  all  that 
you  have  done  while  you  thought  that  you 
were  avoiding  it  will  turn  and  rise  up 
against  you." 

Such  words  as  these,  addressed  to  the 
crowd,  are  very  true;  but  it  is  no  less  true 
that  all  this  becomes  efficacious  only  after 
it  has  been  experienced  and  lived  through. 
In  those  problems  in  which  all  life's 
enigmas  converge,  the  crowd  which  is 
wrong  is  almost  always  justified  as  against 
the  wise  man  who  is  right.  It  refuses  to 
believe  him  on  his  word.  It  feels  dimly 
that  behind  the  most  evident  abstract  truths 
there  are  numberless  living  truths  which  no 
brain  can  foresee,  for  they  need  time, 
reality  and  men's  passions  to  develop  their 
work.    That  is  why,  whatever  warning  we 


Universal  Suffrage 

may  give  it,  whatever  prediction  we  may 
make  to  it,  the  crowd  insists  before  all  that 
the  experiment  shall  be  tried.  Can  we  say 
that,  in  cases  where  the  crowd  has  obtained 
the  experiment,  it  was  wrong  to  insist 
upon  it? 

A  special  study  would  be  needed  to 
examine  all  that  universal  suffrage  has 
added  to  the  general  intelligence,  to  the 
civic  conscience,  dignity  and  solidarity  of 
the  nations  that  have  practised  it ;  but,  even 
if  it  had  done  no  more  than  to  create,  as  in 
America  and  France,  that  sense  of  real 
equality  which  is  there  breathed  as  a  more 
human  and  purer  atmosphere  and  which 
seems  new  and  almost  prodigious  to  those 
who  come  from  elsewhere,  that  in  itself 
would  be  a  boon  that  would  cause  its 
gravest  errors  to  be  forgiven.  In  any  case, 
it  is  the  best  preparation  for  that  which 
must  inevitably  come. 


Ill 


THE    MODERN    DRAMA 


THE  MODERN   DRAMA* 
I 

WHEN  I  speak  of  the  modem  drama, 
I  naturally  refer  only  to  those 
regions  of  dramatic  literature 
that,  sparsely  inhabited  as  they  may  be,  are 
yet  essentially  new.  Down  below,  in  the 
ordinary  theatre,  ordinary  and  traditional 
drama  is  doubtless  yielding  slowly  to  the 
influence  of  the  vanguard;  but  it  were  idle 
to  wait  for  the  laggards  when  we  have  the 
pioneers  at  our  call. 

The  first  thing  that  strikes  us  in  the 
drama  of  the  day  is  the  decay,  one  might 
almost  say  the  creeping  paralysis,  of  exter 
nal  action.  Next  we  note  a  very  pro- 
nounced  desire   to   penetrate   deeper  and 

^Translated  by  Alfred  Sutro. 
"5 


The  Double    Garden 

deeper  into  human  consciousness,  and  place 
moral  problems  upon  a  high  pedestal;  and 
finally  the  search,  still  very  timid  and  halt- 
ing, for  a  kind  of  new  beauty,  that  shall  be 
less  abstract  than  was  the  old. 

It  is  certain  that,  on  the  actual  stage,  we 
have  far  fewer  extraordinary  and  violent 
adventures.  Bloodshed  has  grown  less  fre- 
quent, passions  less  turbulent;  heroism  has 
become  less  unbending,  courage  less  mate- 
rial and  less  ferocious.  People  still  die  on 
the  stage,  it  is  true,  as  in  reality  they  still 
must  die,  but  death  has  ceased — or  will 
cease,  let  us  hope,  very  soon — to  be 
regarded  as  the  indispensable  setting,  the 
ultima  ratio,  the  inevitable  end,  of  every 
dramatic  poem.  In  the  most  formidable 
crises  of  our  life — which,  cruel  though  it 
may  be,  is  cruel  in  silent  and  hidden  ways — 
we  rarely  look  to  death  for  a  solution;  and 
for  all  that  the  theatre  is  slower  than  the 
other  arts  to  follow  the  evolution  of  human 
ii6 


The    Modern   Drama 

consciousness,  it  will  still  be  at  last  com- 
pelled, in  some  measure,  to  take  this  into 
account. 

When  we  consider  the  ancient  and  tragi- 
cal anecdotes  that  constitute  the  entire 
basis  of  the  classical  drama;  the  Italian, 
Scandinavian,  Spanish  or  mythical  stories 
that  provided  the  plots,  not  only  for  all  the 
plays  of  the  Shakespearian  period,  but  also 
— not  altogether  to  pass  over  an  art  that 
was  infinitely  less  spontaneous — for  those 
of  French  and  German  romanticism,  we  dis- 
cover at  once  that  these  anecdotes  are  no 
longer  able  to  offer  us  the  direct  interest 
they  presented  at  a  time  when  they  appeared 
highly  natural  and  possible,  at  a  time,  when, 
at  any  rate,  the  circumstances,  manners  and 
sentiments  they  recalled  were  not  yet  extinct 
in  the  minds  of  those  who  witnessed  their 
reproduction. 


117 


The    Double  Garden 

II 

To  us,  however,  these  adventures  no 
longer  correspond  with  a  living  and  actual 
reality.  Should  a  youth  of  our  own  time 
love,  and  meet  obstacles  not  unlike  those 
which,  in  another  order  of  ideas  and  events, 
beset  Romeo's  passion,  we  need  no  telling 
that  his  adventure  will  be  embelhshed  by 
none  of  the  features  that  gave  poetry  and 
grandeur  to  the  episode  of  Verona.  Gone 
beyond  recall  is  the  entrancing  atmosphere 
of  a  lordly,  passionate  life ;  gone  the  brawls 
in  picturesque  streets,  the  interludes  of 
bloodshed  and  splendour,  the  mysterious 
poisons,  the  majestic,  complaisant  tombs! 
And  where  shall  we  look  for  that  exquisite 
summer's  night,  which  owes  its  vastness,  its 
savour,  the  very  appeal  that  it  makes  to  us, 
to  the  shadow  of  an  heroic,  inevitable 
death  that  already  lay  heavy  upon  it? 
Divest  the  story  of  Romeo  and  Juliet  of 
ii8 


The   Modern   Drama 

these  beautiful  trappings,  and  we  have  only 
the  very  simple  and  ordinary  desire  of  a 
noble-hearted,  unfortunate  youth  for  a 
maiden  whose  obdurate  parents  deny  him 
her  hand.  All  the  poetry,  the  splendour, 
the  passionate  life  of  this  desire,  result 
from  the  glamour,  the  nobility,  tragedy, 
that  are  proper  to  the  environment  wherein 
it  has  come  to  flower;  nor  is  there  a  kiss,  a 
murmur  of  love,  a  cry  of  anger,  grief  or 
despair,  but  borrows  its  majesty,  grace,  its 
heroism,  tenderness — in  a  word,  every 
image  that  has  helped  it  to  visible  form — 
from  the  beings  and  objects  around  it;  for 
it  is  not  in  the  kiss  itself  that  the  sweetness 
and  beauty  are  found,  but  in  the  circum- 
stance, hour  and  place  wherein  it  was  given. 
Again,  the  same  objections  would  hold  if  we 
chose  to  imagine  a  man  of  our  time  who 
should  be  jealous  as  Othello  was  jealous, 
possessed  of  Macbeth's  ambition,  unhappy 
as  Lear;  or,  like  Hamlet,  restless  and 
119 


The    Double  Garden 

wavering,  bowed  down  beneath  the  weight 
of  a  frightful  and  unrealisable  duty. 

Ill 

These  conditions  no  longer  exist.  The 
adventure  of  the  modern  Romeo — to  con- 
sider only  the  external  events  which  it 
might  provoke — would  not  provide  mate- 
rial for  a  couple  of  acts.  Against  this  it 
may  be  urged  that  a  modern  poet,  who 
desires  to  put  on  the  stage  an  analogous 
poem  of  youthful  love,  is  perfectly  justified 
in  borrowing  from  days  gone  by  a  more 
decorative  setting,  one  that  shall  be  more 
fertile  in  heroic  and  tragical  incident. 
Granted;  but  what  can  the  result  be  of  such 
an  expedient?  Would  not  the  feelings  and 
passions  that  demand  for  their  fullest,  most 
perfect  expression  and  development  the 
atmosphere  of  to-day  (for  the  passions  and 
feelings  of  a  modem  poet  must,  in  despite 
of    himself,    be    entirely    and  exclusively 

I20 


The    Modern    Drama 

modern)  would  not  these  suddenly  find 
themselves  transplanted  to  a  soil  where  all 
things  prevented  their  living?  They  no 
longer  believe,  yet  are  charged  with  the 
fear  and  hope  of  eternal  judgment.  In 
their  hours  of  distress  they  have  discovered 
new  forces  to  cling  to,  that  seem  trust- 
worthy, human  and  just;  and  behold  them 
thrust  back  to  a  century  wherein  prayer  and 
the  sword  decide  all  !  They  have  profited, 
unconsciously  perhaps,  by  every  moral 
advance  we  have  made — and  they  are  sud- 
denly flung  into  abysmal  days  when  the 
least  gesture  was  governed  by  prejudices  at 
which  they  can  only  shudder  or  smile.  In 
such  an  atmosphere,  what  can  they  do ;  how 
hope  that  they  truly  can  live  there  ? 

IV 

But  we  need  dwell  no  further  on  the 
necessarily  artificial  poems  that  arise  from 
the  impossible  marriage  of  past  and  present. 

121 


The   Double    Garden 

Let  us  rather  consider  the  drama  that 
actually  stands  for  the  reality  of  our  time, 
as  Greek  drama  stood  for  Greek  reality, 
and  the  drama  of  the  Renaissance  for  the 
reality  of  the  Renaissance.  Its  scene  is  a 
modern  house,  it  passes  between  men  and 
women  of  to-day.  The  names  of  the  invisi- 
ble protagonists — the  passions  and  ideas — 
are  the  same,  more  or  less,  as  of  old.  We 
see  love,  hatred,  ambition,  jealousy,  envy, 
greed;  the  sense  of  justice  and  idea  of 
duty;  pity,  goodness,  devotion,  piety,  sel- 
fishness, vanity,  pride,  etc.  But  although 
the  names  have  remained  more  or  less  the 
same,  how  great  is  the  difference  we  find  in 
the  aspect  and  quality,  the  extent  and  influ- 
ence, of  these  ideal  actors!  Of  all  their 
ancient  weapons  not  one  is  left  them,  not 
one  of  the  marvellous  moments  of  olden 
days.  It  is  seldom  that  cries  are  heard 
now;  bloodshed  is  rare,  and  tears  not  often 
seen.    It  is  in  a  small  room,  round  a  table, 

122 


The   Modern   Drama 

close  to  the  fire,  that  the  joys  and  sorrows 
of  mankind  are  decided.  We  suffer,  or 
make  others  suffer,  we  love,  we  die,  there 
in  our  corner;  and  it  were  the  strangest 
chance  should  a  door  or  a  window  suddenly, 
for  an  instant,  fly  open,  beneath  the  pres- 
sure of  extraordinary  despair  or  rejoicing. 
Accidental,  adventitious  beauty  exists  no 
longer;  there  remains  only  an  external 
poetry,  that  has  not  yet  become  poetic. — 
And  what  poetry,  if  we  probe  to  the  root  of 
thmgs — what  poetry  is  there  that  does  not 
borrow  nearly  all  of  its  charm,  nearly  all  of 
its  ecstasy,  from  elements  that  are  wholly 
external? — Last  of  all,  there  is  no  longer  a 
God  to  widen,  or  master,  the  action;  nor  is 
there  an  inexorable  fate  to  form  a  myste- 
rious, solemn  and  tragical  background  for 
the  slightest  gesture  of  man;  nor  the  som- 
bre and  abundant  atmosphere,  that  was  able 
to  ennoble  even  his  most  contemptible  weak- 
nesses, his  least  pardonable  crimes. 
123 


The    Double  Garden 

There  still  abides  with  us,  it  is  true,  a 
terrible  unknown;  but  it  is  so  diverse  and 
elusive,  it  becomes  so  arbitrary,  so  vague 
and  contradictory,  the  moment  we  try  to 
locate  it,  that  we  cannot  evoke  it  without 
great  danger;  cannot  even,  without  the 
mightiest  difficulty,  avail  ourselves  of  it, 
though  in  all  loyalty,  to  raise  to  the  point 
of  mystery  the  gestures,  actions  and  words 
of  the  men  we  pass  every  day.  The 
endeavour  has  been  made;  the  formidable, 
problematic  enigma  of  heredity,  the  grand- 
iose but  improbable  enigma  of  inherent 
justice,  and  many  others  besides,  have  each 
in  their  turn  been  put  forward  as  a  substi- 
tute for  the  vast  enigma  of  the  Providence 
or  Fatality  of  old.  And  it  is  curious  to 
note  how  these  youthful  enigmas,  born  but 
of  yesterday,  already  seem  older,  more 
arbitrary,  more  unlikely,  than  those  whose 
places  they  took  in  an  access  of  pride. 


1*4 


The    Modern   Drama 

V 

Where  are  we  to  look,  then,  for  the 
grandeur  and  beauty  that  we  find  no  longer 
in  visible  action,  or  in  words,  stripped  as 
these  are  of  their  attraction  and  glamour? 
For  words  are  only  a  kind  of  mirror  which 
reflects  the  beauty  of  all  that  surrounds  it; 
and  the  beauty  of  the  new  world  wherein 
we  live  does  not  seem  as  yet  able  to  project 
its  rays  on  these  somewhat  reluctant  mirrors. 
Where  shall  we  look  for  the  horizon,  the 
poetry,  now  that  we  no  longer  can  seek  it  in 
a  mystery  which,  for  all  that  It  still  exists, 
does  yet  fade  from  us  the  moment  wa 
endeavour  to  give  it  a  name? 

The  modern  drama  would  seem  to  be 
vaguely  conscious  of  this.  Incapable  of 
outside  movement,  deprived  of  external 
ornament,  daring  no  longer  to  make  serious 
appeal  to  a  determined  divinity  or  fatality, 
it  has  fallen  back  on   itself,  and   seeks  to 

125 


The    Double   Garden 

discover,  in  the  regions  of  psychology  and 
of  moral  problems,  the  equivalent  of  what 
once  was  offered  by  exterior  life.  It  has 
penetrated  deeper  into  human  conscious- 
Y  ness;  but  has  encountered  difficulties  there 
no  less  strange  than  unexpected. 

To  penetrate  deeply  into  human  con- 
sciousness is  the  privilege,  even  the  duty,  of 
the  thinker,  the  moralist,  the  historian,  nov- 
elist, and  to  a  degree,  of  the  lyrical  poet; 
but  not  of  the  dramatist.  Whatever  the 
temptation,  he  dare  not  sink  into  inactivity, 
become  mere  philosopher  or  observer.  Do 
what  one  will,  discover  what  marvels  one 
may,  the  sovereign  law  of  the  stage,  its 
essential  demand,  will  always  be  action. 
With  the  rise  of  the  curtain,  the  high  intel- 
lectual desire  within  us  undergoes  transfor- 
mation; and  in  place  of  the  thinker,  psychol- 
ogist, mystic  or  moralist  there  stands  the 
mere  instinctive  spectator,  the  man  electri- 
fied negatively  by  the  crowd,  the  man  whose 

126 


The    Modern    Drama 

one  desire  it  is  to  see  something  happen. 
This  transformation  or  substitution  is  incon- 
testable, strange  as  it  may  seem ;  and  is  due, 
perhaps,  to  the  influence  of  the  human 
polypier,  to  some  undeniable  faculty  of 
our  soul,  which  is  endowed  with  a  special, 
primitive,  almost  unimprovable  organ, 
whereby  men  can  think,  and  feel,  and  be 
moved,  en  masse.  And  there  are  no  words 
so  profound,  so  noble  and  admirable,  but 
they  will  soon  weary  us  if  they  leave  the 
situation  unchanged,  if  they  lead  to  no 
action,  bring  about  no  decisive  conflict,  or 
hasten  no  definite  solution. 

VI 

But  whence  is  it  that  action  arises  in  the 
consciousness  of  man?  In  its  first  stage  It 
springs  from  the  struggle  between  diverse 
conflicting  passions.  But  no  sooner  has  it 
raised  itself  somewhat — and  this  is  true,  ii 

127 


The    Double  Garden 

we  examine  it  closely,  of  the  first  stage  also 
— than  it  would  seem  to  be  solely  due  to  the 
conflict  between  a  passion  and  a  moral  law, 
between  a  duty  and  a  desire.  Hence  the 
eagerness  with  which  modern  dramatists 
have  plunged  into  all  the  problems  of  con- 
temporary morality;  and  it  may  safely  be 
said  that  at  this  moment  they  confine  them- 
selves almost  exclusively  to  the  discussion  of 
these  different  problems. 

This  movement  was  initiated  by  the 
dramas  of  Alexandre  Dumas  fils,  dramas 
which  brought  the  most  elementary  of 
moral  conflicts  on  to  the  stage;  dramas, 
indeed,  whose  entire  existence  was  based  on 
problems  such  as  the  spectator,  who  must 
always  be  regarded  as  the  ideal  moralist, 
would  never  put  to  himself  in  the  course  of 
his  whole  spiritual  existence,  so  evident  Is 
their  solution.  Should  the  faithless  hus- 
band or  wife  be  forgiven?  Is  it  well  to 
avenge  infidelity  by  infidelity?  Has  the 
128 


The   Modern    Drama 

illegitimate  child  any  rights?  Is  the  mar- 
riage of  inclination — such  is  the  name  it 
bears  in  those  regions — preferable  to  the 
marriage  for  money?  Have  parents  the 
right  to  oppose  a  marriage  for  love?  Is 
divorce  to  be  deprecated  when  a  child  has 
been  born  of  the  union?  Is  the  sin  of  the 
adulterous  wife  greater  than  that  of  the 
adulterous  husband?  etc.,  etc. 

Indeed,  it  may  be  said  here  that  the 
entire  French  theatre  of  to-day,  and  a  con- 
siderable proportion  of  the  foreign  thea- 
tre, which  is  only  its  echo,  exist  solely  on 
questions  of  this  kind,  and  on  the 
entirely  superfluous  answers  to  which  they 
give  rise. 

On  the  other  hand,  however,  the  highest 
point  of  human  consciousness  is  attained  by 
the  dramas  of  Bjornson,  of  Hauptmann, 
and,  above  all,  of  Ibsen.  Here  we  touch 
the  limit  of  the  resources  of  modern 
dramaturgy.    For,  In  truth,  the  further  we 

129 


>>-■ 


The    Double  Garden 

penetrate  into  the  consciousness  of  man,  the 
less  struggle  do  we  discover.  It  is  impossi- 
ble to  penetrate  far  into  any  consciousness 
unless  that  consciousness  be  very  enlight- 
ened ;  for,  whether  we  advance  ten  steps,  or 
a  thousand,  in  the  depths  of  a  soul  that  is 
plunged  in  darkness,  we  shall  find  nothing 
there  that  can  be  unexpected,  or  new;  for 
darkness  everywhere  will  only  resemble 
itself.  But  a  consciousness  that  is  truly 
enlightened  will  possess  passions  and  desires 
infinitely  less  exacting,  infinitely  more  peace- 
ful and  patient,  more  salutary,  abstract  and 
general,  than  are  those  that  reside  in  the 
ordinary  consciousness.  Thence,  far  less 
struggle — or  at  least  a  struggle  of  far  less 
violence — ^between  these  nobler  and  wiser 
passions;  and  this  for  the  very  reason  that 
they  have  become  vaster  and  loftier;  for  if 
there  be  nothing  more  restless,  destructive 
and  savage  than  a  dammed-up  stream, 
there  is  nothing  more  tranquil,  beneficent 
130 


The   Modern    Drama 

and  silent  than  the  beautiful  river  whose 
banks  ever  widen. 


VII 

Again,  this  enlightened  consciousness 
will  yield  to  infinitely  fewer  laws,  admit 
infinitely  fewer  doubtful  or  harmful  duties. 
There  is,  one  may  say,  scarcely  a  falsehood 
or  error,  a  prejudice,  half-truth  or  conven- 
tion, that  is  not  capable  of  assuming,  that 
does  not  actually  assume,  when  the  occasion 
presents  itself,  the  form  of  a  duty  in  an 
uncertain  consciousness.  It  is  thus  that 
honour,  in  the  chivalrous,  conjugal  sense  of 
the  word  ( I  refer  to  the  honour  of  the  hus- 
band, which  is  supposed  to  suffer  by  the 
infidelity  of  the  wife)  that  revenge,  a  kind 
of  morbid  prudishness,  pride,  vanity,  piety 
to  certain  gods,  and  a  thousand  other  illu- 
sions. Lave  been,  and  still  remain,  the 
unquenchable  source  of  a  multitude  of 
131 


The    Double  Garden 

duties  that  are  still  regarded  as  absolutely 
sacred,  absolutely  incontrovertible,  by  a 
vast  number  of  inferior  consciousnesses. 
And  these  so-called  duties  are  the  pivot  of 
almost  all  the  dramas  of  the  Romantic 
period,  as  of  most  of  those  of  to-day.  But 
not  one  of  these  sombre,  pitiless  duties,  that 
so  fatally  impel  mankind  to  death  and  disas- 
ter, can  readily  take  root  in  the  conscious- 
ness that  a  healthy,  living  light  has  ade- 
quately penetrated ;  in  such  there  will  be  no 
room  for  honour  or  vengeance,  for  conven- 
tions that  clamour  for  blood.  It  will  hold 
no  prejudices  that  exact  tears,  no  injustice 
eager  for  sorrow.  It  will  have  cast  from 
their  throne  the  gods  who  insist  on  sacrifice, 
and  the  love  that  craves  for  death.  For 
when  the  sun  has  entered  into  the  conscious- 
ness of  him  who  is  wise,  as  we  may  hope 
that  it  will  some  day  enter  into  that  of  all 
men,  it  will  reveal  one  duty,  and  one  alone, 
which  Is  that  we  should  do  the  least  possible 
13a 


The    Modern  Drama 

harm  and  love  others  as  we  love  ourselves; 
and  from  this  duty  no  drama  can  spring. 


VIII 

Let  us  consider  what  happens  in  Ibsen's 
plays.  He  often  leads  us  far  down  into 
human  consciousness,  but  the  drama  remains 
possible  only  because  there  goes  with  us  a 
singular  flame,  a  sort  of  red  light, 
which,  sombre,  capricious — unhallowed, 
one  almost  might  say — falls  only  on  singu- 
lar phantoms.  And  indeed  nearly  all  the 
duties  which  form  the  active  principle  of 
Ibsen's  tragedies  are  duties  situated  no 
longer  within,  but  without,  the  healthy, 
illumined  consciousness;  and  the  duties  wc 
believe  we  discover  outside  this  conscious- 
ness often  come  perilously  near  an  unjust 
pride,  or  a  kind  of  soured  and  morbid  mad- 
ness. 

133 


The  Double    Garden 

Let  it  not  be  imagined,  however — for 
indeed  this  would  be  wholly  to  misunder- 
stand me — that  these  remarks  of  mine  in 
any  way  detract  from  my  admiration  for  the 
great  Scandinavian  poet.  For,  if  it  be  true 
that  Ibsen  has  contributed  few  salutary 
elements  to  the  morality  of  our  time,  he  is 
perhaps  the  only  writer  for  the  stage  who 
has  caught  sight  of,  and  set  in  motion,  a 
new,  though  still  disagreeable  poetry,  which 
he  has  succeeded  in  investing  with  a  kind 
of  age,  gloomy  beauty  and  grandeur 
(surely  too  savage  and  gloomy  for  it  to 
become  general  or  definitive)  ;  as  he  is  the 
only  one  who  owes  nothing  to  the  poetry 
of  the  violently  illumined  dramas  of 
antiquity  or  of  the  Renaissance. 

But,  while  we  wait  for  the  time  when 
human  consciousness  shall  recognise  more 
useful  passions  and  less  nefarious  duties, 
for  the  time  when  the  world's  stage  shall 
consequently  present  more  happiness  and 
134 


The   Modern   Drama 

fewer  tragedies,  there  still  remains,  in  the 
depths  of  every  heart  of  loyal  intention  a 
great  duty  of  charity  and  justice  that 
eclipses  all  others.  And  it  is  perhaps  from 
the  struggle  of  this  duty  against  our 
egoism  and  ignorance  that  the  veritable 
drama  of  our  century  shall  spring.  When 
this  goal  has  been  attained — in  real  life  as 
on  the  stage — it  will  be  permissible  per- 
haps to  speak  of  a  new  theatre,  a  theatre 
of  peace,  and  of  beauty  without  tears. 


131 


THE    FORETELLING    OF   THE 
FUTURE 


THE    FORETELLING    OF    THE 
FUTURE 

I 

IT  is,  in  certain  respects,  quite  inexplica- 
ble that  we  should  not  know  the  Fu- 
ture. Probably  a  mere  nothing,  the 
displacement  of  a  cerebral  lobe,  the  reset- 
ting of  Broca's  convolution  in  a  different 
manner,  the  addition  of  a  slender  network 
of  nerves  to  those  which  form  our  conscious- 
ness: any  one  of  these  would  be  enough  to 
make  the  future  unfold  itself  before  us  with 
the  same  clearness,  the  same  majestic 
amplitude  as  that  with  which  the  past  is 
displayed  on  the  horizon  not  only  of  our 
individual  life,  but  also  of  the  life  of  the 
species  to  which  we  belong.  A  si-gular 
infirmity,  a  curious  limitation  of  our  intel- 
139 


The   Double   Garden 

lect  causes  us  not  to  know  what  is  going  to 
happen  to  us,  when  we  are  fully  aware  of  all 
that  has  befallen  us.  From  the  absolute 
point  of  view  to  which  our  imagination  suc- 
ceeds in  rising,  although  it  cannot  live  there, 
there  is  no  reason  why  we  should  not  see 
that  which  does  not  yet  exist,  considering 
that  that  which  does  not  yet  exist  in  its 
relation  to  us  must  needs  already  have  its 
being  and  manifest  itself  somewhere.  If 
not,  it  would  have  to  be  said  that,  where 
Time  is  concerned,  we  form  the  centre  of 
the  world,  that  we  are  the  only  witnesses 
for  whom  events  wait  so  that  they  may 
have  the  right  to  appear  and  to  count  in  the 
eternal  history  of  causes  and  effects.  It 
would  be  as  absurd  to  assert  this  for  Time 
as  it  would  be  for  Space,  that  other  not 
quite  so  incomprehensible  form  of  the  two- 
fold infinite  mystery  in  which  our  whole  life 
floats. 

Space  is  more  familiar  to  us,  because  the 
140 


The  Foretelling  of  the  Future 

accidents  of  our  organism  place  us  more 
directly  in  relation  with  it  and  make  it  more 
concrete.  We  can  move  in  it  pretty  freely, 
in  a  certain  number  of  directions  before  and 
behind  us.  That  is  why  no  traveller  would 
take  it  into  his  head  to  maintain  that  the 
towns  which  he  has  not  yet  visited  will 
become  real  only  at  the  moment  when  he 
sets  his  foot  within  their  walls.  Yet  this  is 
very  nearly  what  we  do  when  we  persuade 
ourselves  that  an  event  which  has  not  yet 
happened  does  not  yet  exist. 

II 

But  I  do  not  intend,  in  the  wake  of  so 
many  others,  to  lose  myself  in  the  most 
insoluble  of  enigmas.  Let  us  say  no  more 
about  it,  except  this  alone,  that  Time  is  a 
mystery  which  we  have  arbitrarily  divided 
into  a  Past  and  a  Future,  in  order  to  try  to 
understand  something  of  it.     In  itself  we 

I4X 


The    Double   Garden 

may  be  almost  certain  that  it  is  but  an 
immense  eternal,  motionless  Present,  in 
which  all  that  takes  place  and  all  that  will 
take  place  takes  place  immutably,  in  which 
To-Morrow,  save  in  the  ephemeral  mind 
of  man,  is  indistinguishable  from  Yesterday 
or  To-Day. 

One  would  say  that  man  had  always  the 
feeling  that  a  mere  infirmity  of  his  mind 
separates  him  from  the  Future.  He  knows 
it  to  be  there,  living,  actual,  perfect,  behind 
a  kind  of  wall  around  which  he  has  never 
ceased  to.  turn  since  the  first  days  of  his 
coming  on  this  earth.  Or  rather,  he  feels 
it  within  himself  and  known  to  a  part  of 
himself:  only,  that  importunate  and  dis- 
quieting knowledge  is  unable  to  travel, 
through  the  too  narrow  channels  of  his 
senses,  to  his  consciousness,  which  is  the 
only  place  where  knowledge  acquires  a 
name,  a  useful  strength  and,  so  to  speak, 
the  freedom  of  the  human  city.  It  is  only 
142 


The  Foretelling  of  the  Future 

by  glimmers,  by  casual  and  passing  infiltra- 
tions that  future  years  of  which  he  is  full, 
of  which  the  imperious  realities  surround 
him  on  every  hand,  penetrate  to  his  brain. 
He  marvels  that  an  extraordinary  accident 
should  have  closed  almost  hermetically  to 
the  Future  that  brain  which  plunges  into  it 
entirely,  even  as  a  sealed  vessel  plunges, 
without  mixing  with  it,  into  the  depths  of  a 
monstrous  sea  that  overwhelms  it,  entreats 
it,  teases  it  and  caresses  it  with  a  thousand 
billows. 

At  all  times,  man  has  tried  to  find  cran- 
nies in  that  wall,  to  provoke  infiltrations 
into  that  vessel,  to  pierce  the  partitions  that 
separate  his  reason,  which  knows  scarcely 
anything,  from  his  instinct,  which  knows 
all,  but  cannot  make  use  of  its  knowledge. 
It  seems  as  though  he  must  have  succeeded 
more  than  once.  There  have  been  visiona- 
ries, prophets,  sibyls,  pythonesses,  in  whom 
a  distemper,  a  spontaneously  or  artificially 

143 


The    Double  Garden 

hypertrophied  nervous  system  permitted 
unwonted  communications  to  be  established 
between  consciousness  and  unconsciousness, 
between  the  life  of  the  individual  and  that 
of  the  species,  between  man  and  his  hidden 
god.  They  have  left  evidences  of  this  capac- 
ity which  are  as  irrefutable  as  any  other 
historical  evidence.  On  the  other  hand,  as 
those  strange  interpreters,  those  great 
mysterious  hysterics,  along  whose  nerves 
thus  circulated  and  mingled  the  Present  and 
the  Past,  were  rare,  men  discovered,  or 
thought  that  they  discovered,  empirical 
processes  to  enable  them  almost  mechani- 
cally to  read  the  ever-present  and  irritating 
riddle  of  the  Future.  They  flattered  them- 
selves that,  in  this  manner,  they  could  con- 
sult the  unconscious  knowledge  of  things 
and  beasts.  Thence  came  the  interpreta- 
tion of  the  flight  of  birds,  of  the  entrails  of 
victims,  of  the  course  of  the  stars,  of  fire, 
water,  dreams  and  all  the  methods  of 
144 


The  Foretelling  of  the  Future 

divination  that  have  been  handed  down  to 
Us  by  the  authors  of  antiquity. 

Ill 

I  thought  it  curious  to  inquire  where  this 
science  of  the  Future  stands  to-day.  It  no 
longer  has  the  splendour  nor  the  hardihood 
of  old.  It  no  longer  forms  part  of  the 
pubHc  and  religious  life  of  nations.  The 
Present  and  the  Past  reveal  so  many  prodi- 
gies to  us  that  these  suffice  to  amuse  our 
thirst  for  marvels.  Absorbed  as  we  are  in 
what  is  or  was,  we  have  almost  given  up 
asking  what  might  be  or  will  be.  How- 
ever, the  old  and  venerable  science,  so 
deeply  rooted  in  man's  infallible  instinct,  is 
not  abandoned.  It  is  no  longer  practised 
in  broad  daylight.  It  has  taken  shelter  in 
the  darkest  corners,  in  the  most  vulgar, 
credulous,  ignorant  and  despised  environ- 
ments. It  employs  innocent  or  childish 
145 


The    Double  Garden 

methods;  nevertheless,  it,  too,  has  In  a 
certain  measure  evolved,  like  other  things. 
It  neglects  the  majority  of  the  processes  of 
primitive  divination;  it  has  found  others, 
often  eccentric,  sometimes  ludicrous,  and 
has  been  able  to  profit  by  some  few  discov- 
eries that  were  by  no  means  intended 
for  it. 

I  have  followed  it  into  its  dark  retreats. 
I  wished  to  see  it,  not  in  books,  but  at  work, 
in  real  life,  and  among  the  humble  faithful 
who  have  confidence  in  it  and  who  daily 
apply  to  It  for  advice  and  encouragement. 
I  went  to  it  In  good  faith :  unbelieving,  but 
ready  to  believe;  without  prejudice  and 
without  a  predetermined  smile:  for.  If  we 
must  admit  no  miracle  blindly,  it  Is  worse 
blindly  to  laugh  at  It;  and  in  every  obsti- 
nate error  there  lurks,  usually,  an  excellent 
truth  that  awaits  the  hour  of  birth. 


Ufi 


The  Foretelling  of  the  Future 
IV 

Few  towns  would  have  offered  me  a 
wider  or  more  fruitful  field  of  experiment 
than  Paris.  I  therefore  made  my  investi- 
gations there.  I  began  by  selecting  a 
moment  at  which  a  certain  project,  whose 
realization  (which  did  not  depend  upon 
myself  alone)  was  to  be  of  great  import- 
ance to  me,  was  hanging  in  suspense.  I 
will  not  enter  into  the  details  of  the  busi- 
ness, which  has  very  little  interest  in  itself. 
It  is  enough  to  know  that  around  this 
project  were  a  crowd  of  intrigues  and  many 
powerful  and  hostile  wills,  fighting  against 
my  own.  The  forces  were  evenly  balanced, 
and  it  was  impossible,  according  to  human 
logic,  to  foresee  which  would  win  the  day. 
I  therefore  had  very  precise  questions  to 
put  to  the  Future:  a  necessary  condition; 
for,  if  many  people  complain  that  it  tells 
them  nothing,  this  is  often  because  they 
147 


The   Double    Garden 

consult  it  at  a  moment  when  nothing  is 
preparing  on  the  horizon  of  their  existence. 
I  went  successively  to  see  the  astrologers, 
the  palmists,  the  fallen  and  familiar  sibyls 
who  flatter  themselves  that  they  can  read 
the  Future  in  the  cards,  in  coffee-grounds,  in 
the  inflorescence  of  white  of  egg  dissolved 
in  a  glass  of  water,  and  so  on  (for  nothing 
must  be  neglected,  and,  though  the  appara- 
tus be  sometimes  singular,  it  may  happen 
that  a  particle  of  truth  lies  concealed  under 
the  absurdest  practices) .  I  went,  above  all, 
to  see  the  most  famous  of  the  prophetesses 
who,  under  the  names  of  clairvoyants,  seers, 
mediums,  and  the  rest,  are  able  to  substitute 
for  their  own  consciousness  the  conscious- 
ness and  even  a  portion  of  the  unconscious- 
ness of  their  interrogators  and  who  are,  in 
the  main,  the  most  direct  heiresses  of  the 
pythonesses  of  old.  In  this  ill-balanced 
world,  I  met  with  much  knavery,  simula- 
tion and  gross  lying.  But  I  had  also  the 
148 


The  Foretelling  of  the  Future 

occasion  to  study  certain  incontestable 
phenomena  close  at  hand.  These  are  not 
enough  to  decide  whether  it  be  given  to 
man  to  rend  the  tissue  of  illusions  that 
hides  the  Future  from  him ;  but  they  throw 
a  somewhat  strange  light  upon  that  which 
passes  in  the  place  which  to  us  seems  the 
most  inviolable,  I  mean  the  holy  of  holies 
of  the  "Buried  Temple,"  in  which  our  most 
intimate  thoughts  and  the  forces  that  lie 
beneath  them  and  are  unknown  to  us  go  in 
and  out  without  our  knowledge  and  grope 
in  search  of  the  mysterious  road  that  leads 
to  future  events. 


It  would  be  wearisome  to  relate  what 
happened  to  me  with  those  prophets  and 
seers.  I  will  content  myself  with  briefly 
telling  one  of  the  most  curious  experiences, 
which,  moreover,  sums  up  most  of  the 
149 


The    Double  Garden 

others:  the  psychology  of  them  all  is  very 
nearly  identical. 

The  seer  in  question  is  one  of  the  most 
famous  in  Paris.  She  claims  to  incarnate, 
in  her  hypnotic  state,  the  spirit  of  an  un- 
known little  girl  called  Julia.  Having 
made  me  sit  down  at  a  table  that  stood 
between  us,  she  begged  me  to  tutoyer  Julia 
and  to  speak  to  her  gently,  as  one  speaks  to 
a  child  of  seven  or  eight  years.  Thereupon, 
her  features,  her  eyes,  her  hands,  her  whole 
body  were  for  some  seconds  unpleasantly 
convulsed;  her  hair  came  untied;  and  the 
expression  of  her  face  changed  completely 
and  became  artless,  puerile.  The  voice, 
shrill  and  clear,  of  a  small  child  next  came 
from  that  great,  ripe  woman's  body  and 
asked  with  a  little  lisp : 

"What  do  you  want?  Are  you  troubled? 
Is  it  for  yourself  or  for  some  one  else  that 
you  have  come  to  see  me?" 

"For  myself." 

ISO 


The  Foretelling  of  the  Future 

"Very  well;  will  you  help  me  a  little? 
Lead  me  In  thought  to  the  place  where  your 
troubles  are." 

I  concentrated  my  attention  on  the 
project  in  which  I  was  engrossed  and  on 
the  different  actors  In  the,  as  yet,  hidden 
little  drama.  Then,  gradually,  after  some 
preliminary  gropings,  and  without  my  help- 
ing her  with  a  word  or  gesture,  she  really 
penetrated  Into  my  thoughts,  read  them,  so 
to  speak,  as  a  slightly  veiled  book,  placed 
the  situation  of  the  scene  most  accurately, 
recognized  the  principal  characters  and 
described  them  summarily,  with  hopping 
and  childish,  but  quaintly  correct  and  pre- 
cise little  touches. 

"That's  very  good,  Julia,"  I  then 
said,  "but  I  know  all  that;  what  you 
ought  to  tell  me  is  what  Is  going  to  happen 
later." 

"What  is  going  to  happen,  what  Is  going 
to  happen  .  .  .  you  want  to  know  all  that 
iSi 


The   Double    Garden 

is  going  to  happen,  but  it's  very  diffi- 
cult ..." 

"But  still?  How  will  the  business  end? 
Shall  I  win?" 

"Yes,  yes,  I  see;  don't  be  afraid,  I'll  help 
you;  you  will  be  pleased  ..." 

"But  the  enemy  of  whom  you  told  me; 
the  one  who  is  resisting  me  and  who  wishes 
me  ill  .  .  .  " 

"No,  no,  he  wishes  you  no  ill,  it's  because 
of  some  one  else  ...  I  can't  see  why 
.  .  .  He  hates  him  .  .  .  Oh,  he  hates  him, 
he  hates  himl  And  it  is  because  you  like 
the  other  one  so  much  that  he  does  not  want 
you  to  do  for  him  what  you  wish  to  do." 

What  she  said  was  true. 

"But  tell  me,"  I  insisted,  "will  he  go  on 
to  the  end,  will  he  not  yield?" 

"Oh,  do  not  fear  him  ...  I  see,  he  is 
ill;  he  will  not  live  long." 

"You  are  mistaken,  Julia ;  I  saw  him  two 
days  ago;  he  is  quite  well." 

152 


The  Foretelling  of  the  Future 

"No,  no,  he  is  ill  .  .  .  It  doesn't  show, 
but  he  is  very  ill  .  .  .  he  must  die 
soon  ..." 

"But  how,  in  that  case,  and  why?" 

"There  is  blood  upon  him,  around  him, 
everywhere  ..." 

"Blood?  Is  it  a  duel?"  (I  had  thought, 
for  a  moment,  that  I  might  be  called  upon 
to  fight  my  adversary.)  "An  accident,  a 
murder,  a  revenge?"  (He  was  an  unjust 
and  unscrupulous  man,  who  had  done  much 
harm  to  many  people.) 

"No,  no,  ask  me  no  more,  I  am  very 
tired  .   .   .  Let  me  go  ...  " 

"Not  before  I  know  ..." 

"No,  I  can  tell  you  nothing  more  .  .  . 
I  am  too  tired  .  .  .  Let  me  go  ...  Be 
good,  I  will  help  you  ..." 

The  same  attack  as  at  first  then  con- 
vulsed the  body,  in  which  the  little  voice 
had  ceased;  and  the  mask  of  forty  years 
again  covered  the  face  of  the  woman,  who 
153 


The    Double   Garden 

seemed    to    be    waking    from    a    long 
sleep. 

Is  it  necessary  to  add  that  we  had 
never  seen  each  other  before  this  meeting 
and  that  we  knew  as  little  of  each  other  as 
though  we  had  been  born  on  different 
planets  ? 

VI 

Similar  in  the  main,  with  less  character- 
istic and  less  convincing  details,  were 
the  results  of  most  of  the  experiments  in 
which  the  clairvoyants  were  unfeignedly 
asleep.  In  order  to  make  a  sort  of  counter- 
test,  I  sent  two  persons  of  whose  intelli- 
gence and  good  faith  I  was  assured,  to  see 
the  woman  whom  Julia  had  chosen  as  her 
interpreter.  Like  myself,  they  had  to  put  to 
the  Future  a  precise  and  important  question, 
which  chance  or  destiny  alone  could  solve. 
To  one  of  them,  who  consulted  her  on  a 
154 


The  Foretelling  of  the  Future 

friend's  illness,  Julia  foretold  the  near 
death  of  that  friend,  and  the  event  verified 
her  prediction,  although,  at  the  moment 
when  she  made  it,  a  cure  seemed  infinitely 
more  probable  than  death.  To  the  other, 
who  asked  her  how  a  law-suit  would  end, 
she  replied  somewhat  evasively  on  that 
point;  by  way  of  compensation  she  sponta- 
neously revealed  the  spot  where  lay  a 
certain  object  which  had  been  very  precious 
to  the  person  consulting  her,  but  which  had 
been  so  long  lost  and  so  often  loolced  for 
in  vain  that  this  person  was  persuaded  that 
he  had  ceased  to  think  about  it. 

In  so  far  as  I  am  concerned,  Julia's 
prophecy  was  realized  in  part,  that  is  to  say, 
although  I  did  not  triumph  in  respect  of  the 
main  point,  the  affair  was  nevertheless 
arranged  in  a  satisfactory  manner.  As  for 
the  death  of  my  adversary,  it  has  not  yet 
occurred;  and  gladly  do  I  dispense  the 
Future  from  keeping  the  promise  which  it 
155 


The    Double  Garden 

made  me   by   tbe   innocent   mouth  of  the 
child  of  an  unknown  world. 


VII 

It  is  very  astonishing  that  others  can 
thus  penetrate  into  the  last  refuge  of  our 
being  and  there,  better  than  ourselves,  read 
thoughts  and  sentiments  a*  times  forgotten 
or  rejected,  but  always  long-lived,  or  as  yet 
unformulated.  It  is  really  disconcerting 
that  a  stranger  should  see  further  than  our- 
selves into  our  own  hearts.  That  sheds  a 
singular  light  on  the  nature  of  our  inner 
lives.  It  is  vain  for  us  to  keep  watch  upon 
ourselves,  to  shut  ourselves  up  within  our- 
selves: our  consciousness  is  not  water- 
tight, it  escapes,  it  does  not  belong  to  us; 
and,  though  it  requires  special  circum- 
stances for  another  to  instal  himself  there 
and  take  possession  of  it,  nevertheless  it  is 
certain  that,  in  normal  life,  our  spiritual 
156 


The  Foretelling  of  the  Future 

tribunal,  our  for  interieur — as  the  French 
have  called  it,  with  that  profound  intuition 
which  we  often  discover  in  the  etymology  of 
words — is  a  kind  of  forum,  or  spiritual 
market-place,  in  which  the  majority  of 
those  who  have  business  there  come  and  go 
at  will,  look  about  them  and  pick  out  the 
truths,  in  a  very  different  fashion  and  much 
more  freely  than  we  would  have  believed. 
But  let  us  leave  this  point,  which  is  not 
the  object  of  our  study.  What  I  should 
like  to  unravel  in  Julia's  predictions  is  the 
unknown  part  foreign  to  myself.  Did  she 
go  beyond  what  I  knew?  I  do  not  think 
so.  When  she  spoke  to  me  of  the  fortunate 
issue  of  the  affair,  this  was,  upon  the  whole, 
the  issue  which  I  anticipated  and  which  the 
selfish  and  unavowed  part  of  my  instinct 
desired  more  keenly  than  the  complete 
triumph  which  another  and  more  generous 
sentiment  made  it  incumbent  on  me  to 
pursue  and  hope  for,  although  I  knew  it 
157 


The    Double    Garden 

to  be,  in  its  essence,  impossible.  When  she 
foretold  the  death  of  my  adversary,  she  was 
but  revealing  a  secret  wish  of  that  same 
instinct,  one  of  those  dastardly  and  shame- 
ful wishes  which  we  hide  from  ourselves 
and  which  never  rise  to  the  surface  of  our 
thought.  There  would  be  no  real  prophecy 
in  this,  except  if,  against  all  expectation, 
against  all  likelihood,  that  death  should 
occur,  suddenly,  within  a  short  time  hence. 
But,  even  if  it  were  shortly  to  occur,  it 
would  not,  I  think,  be  the  Pythian  that 
would  have  fathomed  the  Future,  but  I,  my 
instinct,  my  unconscious  being,  that  would 
have  foreseen  an  event  with  which  it  was 
connected.  It  would  have  read  the  pages 
of  Time,  not  absolutely  and  as  though  in  an 
universal  book  where  all  that  is  to  take 
place  is  written,  but  by  me,  through  me,  in 
my  private  intuition,  and  would  but  have 
translated  what  my  unconsciousness  was 
unable  to  communicate  to  my  thought. 
158 


The  Foretelling  of  the  Future 

It  was  the  same,  I  imagine,  with  the  two 
persons  who  went  to  consult  her.  That  one 
to  whom  she  foretold  the  death  of  a  friend 
probably,  in  spite  of  the  assurance  which 
reason  gave  to  friendship,  had  the  inner 
conviction,  either  natural  or  conjectural, 
but  violently  suppressed,  that  the  sick  man 
would  die ;  and  it  was  this  conviction  which 
the  clairvoyant  discerned  amid  the  sweet 
hopes  that  strove  to  deceive  it.  As  for  the 
second,  who  unexpectedly  recovered  a  mis- 
laid object,  it  is  difficult  to  know  the  state 
of  another's  mind  with  sufficient  exactness 
to  decide  whether  this  was  a  case  of  second 
sight,  or  simply  of  recollection.  Was  he 
who  had  lost  the  object  absolutely  ignorant 
of  the  place  and  circumstances  in  which  he 
had  lost  it?  He  says  so;  he  declares  that 
he  never  had  the  least  notion :  that,  on  the 
contrary,  he  was  persuaded  that  the  object 
had  been  not  mislaid,  but  stolen,  and  that 
he  had  never  ceased  to  suspect  one  of  his 
159 


The   Double    Garden 

servants.  But  it  is  possible  that,  while  his 
intelligence,  his  waking  ego,  paid  no  atten- 
tion to  it,  the  unconscious  and  as  though 
sleeping  portion  of  himself  may  very  well 
have  remarked  and  remembered  the  place 
where  the  object  had  been  put.  Thence, 
by  a  miracle  no  less  surprising,  but  of  a 
different  order,  the  seer  would  have  found 
and  awakened  the  latent  and  almost  animal 
memory  and  brought  it  to  human  light 
which  it  had  vainly  tried  to  reach. 

VIII 

Could  this  be  the  case  with  all  predic- 
tions? Were  the  prophecies  of  the  great 
prophets,  the  oracles  of  the  sibyls,  witches, 
pythonesses  content  thus  to  reflect,  translate, 
raise  to  the  level  of  the  intelligible  world 
the  instinctive  clairvoyance  of  the  indi- 
viduals or  peoples  that  listened  to  them? 
Let  each  accept  the  reply  or  the  hypothesis 
i6o 


The  Foretelling  of  the  Future 

which  his  own  experience  suggests  to  him. 
I  have  given  mine  with  the  simplicity  and 
sincerity  which  a  question  of  this  nature 
demands.* 

*Other  subjects  of  my  inquiries  gave  me  less 
curious,  but  often  analogous  results.  I  visited,  for 
instance,  a  certain  number  of  palmists.  On  seeing 
the  sumptuous  apartments  of  several  of  those 
prophets  of  the  hand,  who  revealed  to  me  nothing 
but  nonsense,  I  was  admiring  the  ingenuousness 
of  their  patrons,  when  a  friend  pointed  out  to  me, 
in  a  lane  near  the  Mont-de-Piete,  the  abode  of  a 
practitioner  who,  according  to  him,  had  most 
effectively  cultivated  and  developed  the  great 
traditions  of  the  science  of  DesbaroUes  and 
d'Arpentigny. 

On  the  sixth  floor  of  a  hideous  rabbit-warren 
of  a  house,  in  a  loft  that  served  as  both  living- 
room  and  bed-room,  I  found  an  unpretending, 
gentle  and  vulgar  old  man,  whose  manner  of 
speech  suggested  the  hall-porter  rather  than  the 
prophet.  I  did  not  obtain  much  from  him;  but, 
in  the  case  of  some  more  nervous  persons  whom 
I  brought  to  him,  particularly  two  or  three 
women  with  whose  past  and  character  I  was  fairly 
well-acquainted,  he  revealed  with  rather  astonish- 
ing precision  the  essential  preoccupations  of 
their  minds  and  hearts,  discerned  very  cleverly 
the  chief  curves  of  their  existence,  stopped  at  the 
cross-roads  where  their  destinies  had  really 
l6i 


The  Double    Garden 

To  resume  my  inquiry.  In  so  far,  then, 
as  concerns  that  formidable  unknown  which 
stretches  before  us,  I  found  nothing  conclu- 
sive, nothing  decisive;  and  yet,  I  repeat,  it 
is   almost   incredible   that   we  should   not 

swerved  or  wavered,  and  discovered  certain  strik- 
ingly exact  and  almost  anecdotical  particulars, 
such  as  journeys,  love-aflFairs,  influences  under- 
gone, or  accidents.  In  a  word,  and  taking  into 
consideration  the  sort  of  auto-suggestion  that 
causes  our  imagination,  more  or  less  inflamed  by 
the  contact  of  mystery,  immediately  and  pre- 
cisely to  state  the  most  shapeless  clue,  he  traced, 
on  a  somewhat  conventional  and  symbolical  plan, 
a  clearly-established  scheme  of  their  past  and 
present,  in  which  they  were  obliged,  in  spite  of 
their  distrust,  to  recognize  the  special  track  of 
their  lives.  In  so  far  as  his  predictions  are  con- 
cerned, I  must  say,  in  passing,  that  not  one  of 
them  was  realized. 

Certainly  there  was  in  his  intuition  something 
more  than  a  fortunate  coincidence.  It  was,  in  a 
lesser  degree,  a  sort  of  nervous  communication 
between  one  unconsciousness  and  another  of  the 
same  class,  as  with  the  clairvoyant.  I  have  met 
the  same  phenomenon  in  the  case  of  a  woman 
who  read  coflFee-grounds,  but  accompanied  by 
more  venturesome  and  less  certain  manifesta- 
tions: I  will,  therefore,  not  pause  to  consider  it 
162 


The  Foretelling  of  the  Future 

know  the  Future.  I  can  imagine  that  wc 
stand  opposite  to  it  as  though  opposite  to 
a  forgotten  past.  We  might  try  to  remem- 
ber it.  It  would  be  a  question  of  inventing 
or  re-discovering  the  road  taken  by  that 
memory  which  precedes  us. 

I  can  conceive  that  we  are  not  qualified 
to  know  beforehand  the  disturbances  of  the 
elements,  the  destiny  of  the  planets  of  the 
earth,  of  empires,  peoples  and  races.  All 
this  does  not  touch  us  directly,  and  we  know 
it  in  the  past  thanks  only  to  the  artifices  of 
history.  But  that  which  regards  us,  that 
which  is  within  our  reach,  that  which  is  to 
unfold  itself  within  the  little  sphere  of 
years,  a  secretion  of  our  spiritual  organism, 
that  envelops  us  in  Time,  even  as  the  shell 
or  the  cocoon  envelops  the  mollusc  or  the 
insect  in  Space ;  that,  together  with  all  the 
external  events  relating  to  it,  is  probably 
recoi;ded  in  that  sphere.  In  any  case,  it 
would  be  much  more  natural  that  it  were 
163 


The    Double  Garden 

so  recorded  than  comprehensible  that  it 
were  not.  There  we  have  realities  strug- 
gling with  an  illusion ;  and  there  is  nothing 
to  prevent  us  from  believing  that,  here  as 
elsewhere,  realities  will  end  by  overcoming 
illusion.  Realities  are  what  will  happen  to 
us,  having  already  happened  in  the  history 
that  overhangs  our  own,  the  motion- 
less and  superhuman  history  of  the 
universe.  Illusion  is  the  opaque  veil 
woven  with  the  ephemeral  threads  called 
Yesterday,  To-day  and  To-Morrow,  which 
we  embroider  on  those  realities.  But  it  is 
not  indispensable  that  our  existence  should 
continue  the  eternal  dupe  of  that  illusion. 
We  may  even  ask  ourselves  whether  our 
extraordinary  unfitness  for  knowing  a  thing 
so  simple,  so  incontestable,  so  perfect  and 
so  unnecessary  as  the  Future,  would  not 
form  one  of  the  greatest  subjects  for  aston- 
ishment to  an  inhabitant  of  another  star 
who  should  visit  us. 

164 


The  Foretelling  of  the  Future 

To-day,  all  this  appears  to  us  so  pro- 
foundly impossible  that  we  find  it  difficult 
to  imagine  how  the  certain  reality  of  the 
Future  would  refute  the  objections  which  we 
make  to  it  in  the  name  of  the  organic  illu- 
sion of  our  minds.  We  say  to  it,  for 
instance:  If,  at  the  moment  of  undertak- 
ing an  affair,  we  could  know  that  its  out- 
come would  be  unfortunate,  we  should 
not  undertake  it;  and,  since  it  must  be 
written  somewhere,  in  Time,  before  our 
question  has  been  put,  that  the  affair 
will  not  take  place,  seeing  that  we  aban- 
don it,  we  could  not,  therefore,  foresee 
the  outcome  of  that  which  will  have  no 
beginning. 

So  as  not  to  lose  ourselves  in  this  road, 
which  would  lead  us  whither  nothing  calls 
us,  it  will  be  enough  for  us  to  say  that  the 
Future,  like  all  that  exists,  is  probably  more 
coherent  and  more  logical  than  the  logic  of 
our  imagination  and  that  all  our  hesita" 
i6s 


The    Double  Garden 

tions  and  uncertainties   are   included  in  its 
provisions. 

Moreover,  we  must  not  believe  that  the 
march  of  events  would  be  completely  upset 
if  we  knew  it  beforehand.  First,  only  they 
would  know  the  Future,  or  a  part  of  the 
Future,  who  would  take  the  trouble  to  learn 
it;  even  as  only  they  know  the  Past,  or  a 
part  of  their  own  Present,  who  have  the 
courage  and  the  intelligence  to  examine  it. 
We  should  quickly  accommodate  ourselves 
to  the  lessons  of  this  new  science,  even  as 
we  have  accommodated  ourselves  to  those 
of  history.  We  should  soon  make  allow- 
ance for  the  evils  which  we  could  not 
escape  and  for  inevitable  evils.  The  wiser 
among  us,  for  themselves,  would  lessen  the 
sum  total  of  the  latter;  and  the  others 
would  meet  them  half-way,  even  as  now 
they  go  to  meet  many  certain  disasters 
which  are  easily  foretold.  The  amount  of 
our     vexations     would     be      somewhat 

i66 


The  Foretelling  of  the  Future 

decreased,  but  less  than  we  hope;  for 
already  our  reason  is  able  to  foresee  a 
portion  of  our  Future,  if  not  with  the 
material  evidence  that  we  dream  of,  at 
least  with  a  moral  certainty  that  is  often 
satisfying :  yet  we  observe  that  the  majority 
of  men  derive  hardly  any  profit  from  this 
easy  foreknowledge.  Such  men  would 
neglect  the  counsels  of  the  Future,  even  as 
they  hear,  without  following  it,  the  advice 
of  the  Past. 


107 


IN   AN    AUTOMOBILE 


IN  AN  AUTOMOBILE^ 


THE  first  trips — the  initiation,  with  the 
master's  eye  upon  you — count  for 
but  little.  One  is  not  in  direct  com- 
munication with  the  wonderful  beast.  Its 
veritable  character  is  hidden,  for  there  is  a 
tiresome  intermediary  between,  a  reti- 
cent, cunning  interpreter — the  responsible 
tamer.  With  your  foot  on  the  brake,  even 
when  you  hold  the  levers  and  handles 
between  your  fingers,  you  are  far  from  pos- 
sessing the  monster.  By  your  side  sits  the 
master,  whose  sovereignty  it  has  too  long 
acknowledged;  to  him  it  is  as  obsequious, 
as  submissively  attached,  as  a  faithful  dog. 
For  the  thing  is  half  human.     You  feel 

^Translated  by  Alfred  Sutro. 
171 


The    Double   Garden 

somewhat  like  a  lion-tamer's  apprentice 
when  he  enters  the  cage  with  his  father,  and 
sees  the  cowed  brutes  prostrate  themselves 
humbly  before  the  commanding  eye  and  the 
lash.  One  has  a  great  desire  to  be  alone, 
in  Space,  with  this  unknown  animal,  that 
dates  but  from  yesterday;  we  burn  to  dis- 
cover what  it  is  in  itself,  what  it  demands 
and  withholds,  what  obedience  it  will  vouch- 
safe to  its  unexpected  master;  as  also  what 
new  lessons  the  new  horizons  will  teach  us, 
the  new  horizons  into  which  we  shall  be 
plunged  to  our  very  soul  by  a  force  that, 
issuing  now,  and  for  the  first  time,  from  the 
inexhaustible  reservoir  of  undisciplined 
forces,  permits  us  to  absorb,  in  one  day,  as 
many  sights,  as  much  landscape  and  sky,  as 
would  formerly  have  been  granted  to  us  in 
a  whole  life-time. 


17a 


In  an   Automobile 

II 

Yesterday  the  master  drove  us  from 
Paris  to  Rouen.  This  morning  he  left  me, 
having  first  taken  me  outside  the  gates  of 
the  old,  many-steepled  city.  There  I  was, 
alone  with  the  dreadful  hippogriff;  alone 
in  the  open  country,  the  horizon  of  immacu- 
late blue  on  the  left,  on  the  right  still  faintly 
pink;  alone  on  the  desolate  road  that  winds 
between  oceans  of  corn,  with  islands  of 
trees  that  turn  into  blue  in  the  distance. 

I  am  many  miles  from  a  station,  far  from 
garage  or  repairers.  And  at  first  I  am  con- 
scious of  a  vague  uneasiness,  that  is  not 
without  its  charm.  I  am  at  the  mercy  of 
this  mysterious  force,  that  is  yet  more  logi- 
cal than  I.  A  caprice  of  its  hidden  life — • 
one  of  those  caprices  that,  mysterious  as 
they  may  seem  to  us,  are  yet  never  wrong, 
and  put  our  arrogant  reason  to  shame — 
and  I  should  be  solitary  in  this  illimitable 
173 


The    Double  Garden 

vastness  of  green,  chained  to  the  enigmatic 
mass  that  my  arms  cannot  move.  But  the 
monster,  I  say  to  myself,  has  no  secrets  that 
I  have  not  learned.  Before  placing  my- 
self in  its  power,  I  took  it  to  pieces,  and 
examined  its  organs.  And,  now  that  it 
snorts  at  my  feet,  I  can  recall  its  physiology. 
I  know  its  infallible  wheelwork,  its  delicate 
points ;  I  have  studied  its  infantile  maladies, 
and  learned  what  diseases  are  fatal.  I  have 
had  its  heart  and  soul  laid  bare,  I  have 
looked  into  the  profound  circulation  of  its 
life.  Its  soul  is  the  electric  spark,  which, 
seven  or  eight  hundred  times  to  the  minute, 
sends  fiery  breath  through  the  veins.  And 
the  terrible,  complex  heart  is  composed, 
first  of  all,  of  the  carburetter,  with  its 
strange  double  face:  the  carburetter,  which 
prepares,  proportions  and  volatilizes  the  pe- 
trol— subtle  fairy  that  has  slumbered  ever 
since  the  world  began,  and  is  now  recalled 
to  power,  and  united  to  the  air  that  has  torn 
174 


In    an    Automobile 

her  from  sleep.  This  redoubtable  mixture 
is  eagerly  swallowed  by  the  mighty  viscera 
close  by,  which  contain  the  explosion  cham- 
ber, the  piston,  all  the  live  force  of  the 
motor.  And  around  these,  which  form  one 
mass  of  flame,  pure  water  circulates  always, 
restraining  the  passionate  ardour  that  else 
would  devour  them  and  turn  them  into  a 
flow  of  lava,  calming  with  its  long  and  icy 
caress  the  mortal  frenzy  of  toil — vigilant, 
untiring  water,  that  the  radiator  posted  in 
front  of  the  car  keeps  cool,  and  freshens 
with  all  the  sweetness  of  valley  and  plain. 
Next  comes  the  trembler-blade  which  gov- 
erns the  spark,  and  is  in  its  turn  controlled 
by  the  movement  of  the  motor.  The  soul 
obeys  what  is  properly  the  body,  and  the 
body,  in  most  ingenious  harmony,  obeys  the 
soul.  But  so  strangely  elastic  is  this  pre- 
ordained harmony  that  it  is  open  to  a  more 
independent  or  more  intelligent  will — that 
of  the  driver,  which  stands  here  for  the  will 
175 


The    Double  Garden 

of  the  gods — to  improve  still  further  this 
admirable  equilibrium  of  two  alien  forces; 
and  by  means  of  the  "advance  ignition" 
lever,  to  precipitate  the  spark  at  the 
moment  that  the  accidental  aid  or  resistance 
of  the  road  may  render  most  favourable. 

Ill 

Let  us  pause  for  an  instant  to  admire 
this  strange  terminology,  so  spontaneous 
and  withal  so  sensible,  which  is,  in  a  meas- 
ure, the  language  of  a  new  force.  "Ad- 
vance ignition,"  for  instance,  is  a  most  ade- 
quate term,  and  we  should  find  it  vastly 
difficult  to  express  more  tersely  and  clearly 
what  it  was  needful  to  say.  The  ignition  is 
the  inflammation  of  the  explosive  gases  by 
the  electric  spark.  And  this  explosion  can 
be  hastened  or  retarded  in  accordance  with 
the  requirements  of  the  motor.  When  the 
"advance  ignition"  valve  is  opened,  the 
176 


In    an   Automobile 

spark  springs  forth  some  thousandth  part 
of  a  second  before  the  moment  when  it 
would  logically  produce  itself;  in  other 
words,  before  the  piston,  attaining  the  end 
of  its  journey,  shall  have  completely  com- 
pressed the  gas  and  utilized  all  the  energy 
of  the  previous  explosion.  One  would 
think,  at  first,  that  this  premature  explosion 
would  counteract  the  ascending  movement. 
Far  from  it;  experience  proves  that  one 
benefits  by  the  Infinitesimal  time  that  the 
inflamed  gases  take  to  dilate  themselves;  as 
also  probably  by  other  causes  no  less 
obscure.  In  any  event,  we  find  that  the 
pace  of  the  machine  is  curiously  accelerated. 
It  is  a  device,  like  the  glass  of  wine  to  the 
labourer,  to  procure  a  spell  of  abnormal 
strength.  But  whence  does  the  term  come, 
and  who  is  its  father?  Whence  do  these 
words  spring  forth,  at  the  given  moment, 
to  fix  in  life  creatures  of  whose  existence  we 
were  yesterday  unaware?  They  escape 
177 


The   Double    Garden 

from  the  factory,  foundry  or  warehouse; 
they  are  the  last  echoes  of  that  anonymous, 
universal  voice  that  has  given  a  name  to 
trees  and  flowers,  to  bread  and  wine,  to  life 
and  death;  and  fortunately  it  usually  hap- 
pens that  by  the  time  the  pedant  has  begun 
to  regard  and  question,  it  has  become  too 
late  to  make  any  change. 

IV 

Over  and  above  such  matters  as  compres- 
sion, carburation,  oiling,  circulation  of  the 
water,  etc.,  the  trembler-blade  and  the 
sparking-plug  are  the  driver's  especial 
cares.  Should  the  regulating  screw  of  the 
one  displace  itself  by  the  breadth  of  a  hair, 
should  the  two  opposed  wires  of  the  other 
be  touched  by  a  drop  of  oil  or  a  trace  of 
oxide,  the  miraculous  horse  will  die  on  the 
spot.  And  around  these  are  still  many 
organs  whereof  I  dare  scarcely  permit  my- 
i7& 


In    an    Automobile 

self  to  think.  Yonder,  concealed  in  its  case, 
like  a  furious  genie  confined  in  a  narrow 
cell,  is  the  mysterious  apparatus  for  the 
change  of  speed;  and  this,  if  you  give  a 
turn  to  the  lever  when  you  come  to  the  foot 
of  a  hill,  will  produce  repeated  explosions, 
urging  the  piston  to  movement  so  frantic, 
that  every  vertebra  of  the  creature  will 
tremble  and  give  to  the  slackening  wheels  a 
quadruple  force  before  which  each  moun- 
tain will  bend  its  back,  and  carry  the  con- 
queror humbly  to  its  very  crown.  Further 
there  is  the  enigmatic  mechanism  of  the  live 
axle  which,  dispensing  with  chains  and 
straps,  transmits  directly  to  the  two  back 
wheels  all  the  extraordinary  power  gener- 
ated in  its  delirious  heart.  And  still  lower, 
beneath  the  brake,  there  rests,  in  its  almost 
inviolable  box,  the  transcendent  secret  of 
the  diferentiator,  which,  by  means  of  a 
recent  miracle,  permits  two  wheels  of  the 
same  dimensions,  revolving  on  the  same 
179 


The    Double   Garden 

axle  and  moved  by  the  same  motor,  to  per- 
form an  unequal  number  of  turns  I 


But  at  present  I  have  no  concern  with 
these  mighty  mysteries.  Beneath  my  tremu- 
lous hand  the  monster  is  alert  and  docile; 
and  on  either  side  of  the  road  the  cornfields 
flow  peacefully  onward,  true  rivers  of  green. 
The  time  has  now  come  to  try  the  power  of 
esoteric  action.  I  touch  the  magical 
handles.  The  fairy  horse  obeys.  It  stops 
abruptly.  One  short  moan,  and  its  life  has 
all  ebbed  away.  It  is  now  nothing  more 
than  a  vast,  inert  mass  of  metal.  How  to 
resuscitate  it?  I  descend,  and  eagerly 
inspect  the  corpse.  The  plains,  whose  sub- 
missive immensity  I  have  been  braving, 
begin  to  contemplate  revenge.  Now  that  I 
have  ceased  to  move,  they  fling  themselves 
further  and  wider  around  me.  The  blue 
i8o 


In    an   Automobile 

distance  seems  to  recede,  the  sky  to  recoil. 
I  am  lost  among  the  impassable  cornfields, 
whose  myriad  heads  press  forward,  whis- 
pering softly,  craning  to  see  what  I  am 
proposing  to  do;  while  the  poppies,  in  the 
midst  of  that  undulating  crowd,  nod  their 
red  caps  and  burst  into  thousandfold 
laughter.  But  no  matter.  My  recent 
science  is  sure  of  itself.  The  hippogriff 
revives,  gives  its  first  snort  of  life,  and  then 
departs  once  more,  singing  its  song.  I 
reconquer  the  plains,  which  again  bow 
down  before  me.  I  give  a  slow  turn  to  the 
mysterious  "advance  ignition"  lever,  and 
regulate  carefully  the  admission  of  the 
petrol.  The  pace  grows  faster  and  faster, 
the  delirious  wheels  cry  aloud  in  their  glad- 
ness. And  at  first  the  road  comes  moving 
towards  me,  like  a  bride  waving  palms, 
rhythmically  keeping  time  to  some  joyous 
melody.  But  soon  it  grows  frantic,  springs 
forward,  and  throws  itself  madly  upon  me, 
i8i 


The   Double   Garden 

rushing  under  the  car  like  a  furious  torrent, 
whose  foam  lashes  my  face;  it  drowns  me 
beneath  its  waves,  it  blinds  me  with  its 
breath.  Oh,  that  wonderful  breath  1  It  is 
as  though  wings,  as  though  myriad  wings 
no  eye  can  see,  transparent  wings  of  great 
supernatural  birds  that  have  their  homes  on 
invisible  mountains  swept  by  eternal  snow, 
have  come  to  refresh  my  eyes  and  my  brow 
with  their  overwhelming  fragrance !  Now 
the  road  drops  sheer  into  the  abyss,  and  the 
magical  carriage  rushes  ahead  of  it.  The 
trees,  that  for  so  many  slow-moving  years 
have  serenely  dwelt  on  its  borders,  shrink, 
back  in  dread  of  disaster.  They  seem  to 
be  hastening  one  to  the  other,  to  approach 
their  green  heads,  and  in  startled  groups  to 
debate  how  to  bar  the  way  of  the  strange 
apparition.  But  as  this  rushes  onward,  they 
take  panic,  and  scatter  and  fly,  each  one 
quickly  seeking  its  own  habitual  place;  and 
as  I  pass  they  bend  tumultuously  for- 
182 


In    an    Automobile 

ward,  and  their  myriad  leaves,  quick  to  the 
mad  joy  of  the  force  that  is  chanting  its 
hymn,  murmur  in  my  ears  the  voluble  psalm 
of  Space,  acclaiming  and  greeting  the 
enemy  that  hitherto  has  always  been  con- 
quered but  now  at  last  triumphs :    Speed. 

VI 

Space  and  Time,  its  invisible  brother,  are 
perhaps  the  two  great  enemies  of  mankind. 
Could  we  conquer  these,  we  should  be  as 
the  gods.  Time  seems  invincible,  having 
neither  body  nor  form,  no  organs  by  which 
we  can  seize  it.  It  passes,  leaving  traces 
that  nearly  always  are  sad,  like  the  baleful 
shadow  of  some  inevitable  being  we  never 
have  seen  face  to  face.  In  itself  doubtless 
it  has  no  existence,  but  is  only  in  relation  to 
us ;  nor  shall  we  ever  succeed  in  bending  to 
our  will  this  necessary  phantom  of  our 
organically  false  imagination.  But  Space, 
its  magnificent  brother,  Space  that  decks 
183 


The    Double   Garden 

itself  with  the  green  robe  of  the  plains,  the 
yellow  veil  of  the  desert,  the  blue  mantle  of 
the  sea,  and  spreads  over  all  the  azure  of 
the  ether  and  the  gold  of  the  stars — Space, 
it  may  be,  has  already  known  many  defeats ; 
but  never  as  yet  has  man  seized  it,  as  it 
were,  round  the  body,  grappled  with  it, 
alone,  face  to  face.  The  monsters  he  has 
hitherto  launched  against  its  gigantic  mass 
might  conquer,  but  only  to  be  conquered 
again  in  their  turn. 

On  the  sea  great  steamers  subdue  it  day 
after  day;  but  the  sea  is  so  vast  that  the 
extreme  speed  our  frail  lungs  were  able  to 
endure  could  achieve  no  more  than  a  kind 
of  motionless  triumph.  And  again,  as  we 
travel  by  rail,  and  Space  flies  submissive 
before  us,  it  is  still  far  away — we  do  not 
touch  it,  we  do  not  enjoy  it — it  is  like  a 
captive  adorning  the  triumph  of  a  foreign 
king,  and  we  ourselves  the  feeble  prisoners 
of  the  power  that  has  dethroned  it.  But 
184 


In   an   Automobile 

here,  in  this  little  chariot  of  fire,  that  is  so 
light  and  so  docile,  so  gloriously  untiring; 
here,  beneath  the  unfolded  wings  of  this 
bird  of  flame  that  flies  low  down  over  the 
earth  in  the  midst  of  the  flowers,  greeting 
cornfields  and  rivulets,  inviting  the  shade  of 
the  trees;  passing  village  on  village,  glanc- 
ing in  at  the  open  doors  and  watching  the 
tables  spread  for  the  meal,  counting  the 
harvesters  at  work  in  the  meadows,  skirting 
the  church,  half  hidden  by  lime-trees,  and 
taking  its  rest  at  the  inn  on  the  stroke  of 
noon — then  setting  forth  once  more,  sing- 
ing its  song,  to  see  at  one  bound  what  is 
happening  among  men  at  three  days'  march 
from  the  last  place  of  halt,  and  surprising 
the  very  same  hour  in  quite  a  new  world — 
here  Space  does  indeed  become  human,  in 
the  line  of  our  eye,  in  accordance  with  the 
needs  of  our  insatiable,  exacting  soul,  that 
craves  at  once  for  the  small  and  the  mighty, 
the  quick  and  the  slow;  here  it  is  of  us  at 
185 


The    Double  Garden 

last,  it  is  ours,  and  offers  at  every  turn 
glimpses  of  beauty  that,  in  former  days,  we 
could  only  enjoy  when  the  tedious  journey 
was  ended. 

Now,  however,  it  is  not  the  arrival  alone 
that  causes  our  eyes  to  open,  that  revives 
the  eagerness  so  precious  to  life,  and  invites 
admiration ;  now  the  entire  road  is  one  long 
succession  of  arrivals.  The  joys  of  the 
journey's  end  are  multiplied,  for  all  things 
adopt  the  admirable  form  of  the  end;  the 
eyes  are  idle  no  longer,  no  longer  indif- 
ferent; and  memory,  simplest  of  all  the 
fairies  whose  touch  of  the  wand  brings 
happiness — memory,  pondering  silently  on 
the  less  happy  days  that  await  every  man, 
treasures  the  beauties  of  good  mother 
earth;  and  fixes  for  ever,  among  those  pos- 
sessions of  which  none  can  deprive  us,  the 
unexpected  gifts  that  have  been  so  abund- 
antly offered  by  the  glad  hours  and  the 
enfranchised  roads. 

i86 


NEWS   OF   SPRING 


NEWS  OF  SPRING 
I 

I  HAVE  seen  the  manner  in  which  Spring 
stores  up  sunshine,  leaves  and  flowers 
and  makes  ready,  long  beforehand,  to 
invade  the  North.  Here,  on  the  ever- 
balmy  shores  of  the  Mediterranean — that 
motionless  sea  which  looks  as  though  it  were 
under  glass — where,  while  the  months  are 
dark  in  the  rest  of  Europe,  Spring  has 
taken  shelter  from  the  wind  and  the  snows 
in  a  palace  of  peace  and  light  and  love,  it 
is  interesting  to  detect  its  preparations  for 
travelling  in  the  fields  of  undying  green. 
I  can  see  clearly  that  it  is  afraid,  that  it 
hesitates  once  more  to  face  the  great  frost- 
traps  which  February  and  March  lay  for 
it  annually  beyond  the  mountains.  It  waits, 
189 


The    Double  Garden 

it  dallies,  it  tries  its  strength  before  resum- 
ing the  harsh  and  cruel  way  which  the 
hypocrite  Winter  seems  to  yield  to  it.  It 
stops,  sets  out  again,  revisits  a  thousand 
times,  like  a  child  running  round  the  garden 
of  its  holidays,  the  fragrant  valleys,  the 
tender  hills  which  the  frost  has  never 
brushed  with  its  wings.  It  has  nothing  to 
do  here,  nothing  to  revive,  since  nothing 
has  perished  and  nothing  suffered,  since 
all  the  flowers  of  every  season  bathe  here 
in  the  blue  air  of  an  eternal  summer.  But 
it  seeks  pretexts,  it  lingers,  it  loiters,  it  goes 
to  and  fro  like  an  unoccupied  gardener.  It 
pushes  aside  the  branches,  fondles  with  its 
breath  the  olive-tree  that  quivers  with  a 
silver  smile,  polishes  the  glossy  grass, 
rouses  the  corollas  that  were  not  asleep, 
recalls  the  birds  that  had  never  fled,  encour- 
ages the  bees  that  were  workers  without 
ceasing ;  and  then,  seeing,  like  God,  that  all 
is  well  in  the  spotless  Eden,  it  rests  for  a 
190 


News  of  Spring 

moment  on  the  ledge  of  a  terrace  which 
the  orange-tree  crowns  with  regular  flowers 
and  with  fruits  of  light  and,  before  leaving, 
casts  a  last  look  over  its  labour  of  joy  and 
entrusts  it  to  the  sun. 

II 

I  have  followed  it,  these  past  few  days, 
on  the  banks  of  the  Borigo,  from  the  tor- 
rent of  Carei  to  the  Val  de  Gorbio,  in  those 
little  rustic  towns,  Ventimiglia,  Tende, 
Sospello,  in  those  curious  villages,  perched 
upon  rocks,  Sant'  Agnese,  Castellar,  Cas- 
tillon,  in  that  adorable  and  already  quite 
Italian  country  which  surrounds  Mentone. 
You  go  through  a  few  streets  quickened 
with  the  cosmopolitan  and  somewhat  hate- 
ful life  of  the  Riviera,  you  leave  behind  you 
the  band-stand,  with  its  everlasting  town 
music,  around  which  gather  the  consump- 
tive rank  and  fashion  of  Mentone,  and 
191 


I'he   Double    Garden 

behold,  at  two  steps  from  the  crowd  that 
dreads  it  as  it  would  a  scourge  from 
Heaven,  you  find  the  admirable  silence  of 
the  trees,  all  the  goodly  Virgilian  realities 
of  sunk  roads,  clear  springs,  shady  pools 
that  sleep  on  the  mountain-sides,  where 
they  seem  to  await  a  goddess's  reflection. 
You  climb  a  path  between  two  stone  walls 
brightened  by  violets  and  crowned  with  the 
strange  brown  cowls  of  the  arisarum,  with 
its  leaves  of  so  deep  a  green  that  one  might 
believe  them  to  be  created  to  symbolize  the 
coolness  of  the  well,  and  the  amphitheatre 
of  a  valley  opens  like  a  moist  and  splendid 
flower.  Through  the  blue  veil  of  the  giant 
olive-trees  that  cover  the  horizon  with  a 
transparent  curtain  of  scintillating  pearls, 
gleams  the  discreet  and  harmonious  bril- 
liancy of  all  that  men  imagine  in  their 
dreams  and  paint  upon  scenes  that  are 
thought  unreal  and  unrealizable,  when  they 
wish  to  define  the  ideal  gladness  of  an 
192 


News  of  Spring 

immortal  hour,  of  some  enchanted  island, 
of  a  lost  paradise,  or  the  dwelling  of  the 
gods. 

Ill 

All  along  the  valleys  of  the  coast  are 
hundreds  of  these  amphitheatres  which  are 
as  stages  whereon,  by  moonlight  or  amid 
the  peace  of  the  mornings  and  afternoons, 
are  acted  the  dumb  fairy-plays  of  the 
world's  contentment.  They  are  all  alike, 
and  yet  each  of  them  reveals  a  different  hap- 
piness. Each  of  them,  as  though  they  were 
the  faces  of  a  bevy  of  equally  happy  and 
equally  beautiful  sisters,  wears  its  distin- 
guishing smile.  A  cluster  of  cypresses,  with 
its  pure  outline,  a  mimosa  that  resembles 
a  bubbling  spring  of  sulphur,  a  grove  of 
orange-trees  with  dark  and  heavy  tops 
symmetrically  charged  with  golden  fruits 
that  suddenly  proclaim  the  royal  affluence 
of  the  soil  that  feeds  them,  a  slope  covered 
193 


The  Double    Garden 

with  lemon-trees,  where  the  night  seems  to 
have  heaped  up  on  a  mountain-side,  to 
await  a  new  twilight,  the  stars  gathered  by 
the  dawn,  a  leafy  portico  which  opens  over 
the  sea  like  a  deep  glance  that  suddenly  dis- 
closes an  infinite  thought,  a  brook  hidden 
like  a  tear  of  joy,  a  trellis  awaiting  the 
purple  of  the  grapes,  a  great  stone  basin 
drinking  in  the  water  that  trickles  from  the 
tip  of  a  green  reed :  all  and  yet  none  modify 
the  expression  of  the  restfulness,  the  tran- 
quillity, the  azure  silence,  the  blissfulness 
that  is  its  own  delight. 

IV 

But  I  am  looking  for  Winter  and  the 
print  of  its  footsteps.  Where  is  it  hiding? 
It  should  be  here ;  and  how  dares  this  feast 
of  roses  and  anemones,  of  soft  air  and  dew, 
of  bees  and  birds  display  itself  with  such 
assurance  during  the  most  pitiless  month  of 
194 


News  of  Spring 

Winter's  reign  ?  And  what  will  Spring  do, 
what  will  Spring  c.iy,  since  all  seems  done, 
since  all  seems  said?  Is  it  superfluous,  then, 
and  does  nothing  await  it?  No;  search 
carefully:  you  shall  find  amid  this  life  of 
unwearying  youth  the  work  of  its  hand,  the 
perfume  of  its  breath  which  is  younger  than 
life.  Thus,  there  are  foreign  trees  yonder, 
taciturn  guests,  like  poor  relations  in 
ragged  clothes.  They  come  from  very  far, 
from  the  land  of  fog  and  frost  and  wind. 
They  are  aliens,  sullen  and  distrustful. 
They  have  not  yet  learned  the  limpid  speed, 
not  adopted  the  delightful  customs  of  the 
azure.  They  refused  to  believe  in  the 
promises  of  the  sky  and  suspected  the 
caresses  of  the  sun  which,  from  early  dawn, 
covers  them  with  a  mantle  of  silkier  and 
warmer  rays  than  that  with  which  July 
loaded  their  shoulders  in  the  precarious 
summers  of  their  native  land.  It  made  no 
difference:  at  the  given  hour,  when  snow 
195 


The    Double  Garden 

was  falling  a  thousand  miles  away,  their 
trunks  shivered,  and,  despite  the  bold  aver- 
ment of  the  grass  and  a  hundred  thousand 
flowers,  despite  the  impertinence  of  the 
roses  that  climb  up  to  them  to  bear  witness 
to  life,  they  stripped  themselves  for  their 
winter  sleep.  Sombre  and  grim  and  bare  as 
the  dead,  they  await  the  Spring  that  bursts 
forth  around  them;  and,  by  a  strange  and 
excessive  reaction,  they  wait  for  it  longer 
than  under  the  harsh,  gloomy  sky  of  Paris, 
for  it  is  said  that  in  Paris  the  buds  are 
already  beginning  to  shoot.  One  catches 
glimpses  of  them  here  and  there  amid  the 
holiday  throng  whose  motionless  dances 
enchant  the  hills.  They  are  not  many  and 
they  conceal  themselves:  they  are  gnarled 
oaks,  beeches,  planes;  and  even  the  vine, 
which  one  would  have  thought  better-man- 
nered, more  docile  and  well-informed, 
remains  incredulous.  There  they  stand, 
black  and  gaunt,  like  sick  people  on  an 
196 


News  of  Spring 

Easter  Sunday  in  the  church-porch  made 
transparent  by  the  splendour  of  the  sun. 
They  have  been  there  for  years  and  some 
of  them,  perhaps,  for  two  or  three  cen- 
turies; but  they  have  the  terror  of  winter 
in  their  marrow.  They  will  never  lose 
the  habit  of  death.  They  have  too  much 
experience,  they  are  too  old  to  forget  and 
too  old  to  learn.  Their  hardened  reason 
refuses  to  admit  the  light  when  it  does  not 
come  at  the  accustomed  time.  They  are 
rugged  old  men,  too  wise  to  enjoy  unfore- 
seen pleasures.  They  are  wrong.  For 
here,  around  the  old,  around  the  grudging 
ancestors,  is  a  whole  world  of  plants  that 
know  nothing  of  the  future,  but  give  them- 
selves to  it.  They  live  but  for  a  season; 
they  have  no  past  and  no  traditions  and 
they  know  nothing,  except  that  the  hour  is 
fair  and  that  they  must  enjoy  it.  While 
their  elders,  their  masters  and  their  gods, 
sulk  and  waste  their  time,  they  burst  into 
197 


The    Double  Garden 

flower;  they  love  and  they  beget.  They 
are  the  humble  flowers  of  dear  solitude: 
the  Easter  daisy  that  covers  the  sward  with 
its  frank  and  methodical  neatness;  the 
borage  bluer  than  the  bluest  sky;  the 
anemone,  scarlet  or  dyed  in  aniline;  the 
virgin  primrose;  the  arborescent  mallow; 
the  bell-flower,  shaking  its  bells  that  no  one 
hears;  the  rosemary  that  looks  like  a  little 
country  maid;  and  the  heavy  thyme  that 
thrusts  its  grey  head  between  the  broken 
stones. 

But,  above  all,  this  is  the  incomparable 
hour,  the  diaphanous  and  liquid  hour  of  the 
wood-violet.  Its  proverbial  humility  be- 
comes usurping  and  almost  intolerant.  It 
no  longer  cowers  timidly  among  the  leaves : 
it  hustles  the  grass,  overtowers  it,  blots  it 
out,  forces  its  colours  upon  it,  fills  it  with 
its  breath.  Its  unnumbered  smiles  cover 
the  terraces  of  olives  and  vines,  the  tracks 
of  the  ravines,  the  bend  of  the  valleys  with 
198 


News  of  Spring 

a  net  of  sweet  and  innocent  gaiety ;  its  per- 
fume, fresh  and  pure  as  the  soul  of  the 
mountain  spring,  makes  the  air  more  trans- 
lucent, the  silence  more  limpid  and  is,  in 
very  deed,  as  a  forgotten  legend  tells  us, 
the  breath  of  Earth,  all  bathed  in  dew, 
when,  a  virgin  yet,  she  wakes  in  the  sun  and 
yields  herself  wholly  in  the  first  kiss  of 
early  dawn. 


Again,  in  the  little  gardens  that  surround 
the  cottages,  the  bright  little  houses  with 
their  Italian  roofs,  the  good  vegetables, 
unprejudiced  and  unpretentious,  have 
known  no  fear.  While  the  old  peasant, 
who  has  come  to  resemble  the  trees  he  culti- 
vates, digs  the  earth  around  the  olives,  the 
spinach  assumes  a  lofty  bearing,  hastens  to 
grow  green  nor  takes  the  smallest  precau- 
tion; the  garden  bean  opens  its  eyes  of  jet 
199 


The  Double    Garden 

in  its  pale  leaves  and  sees  the  night  fall 
unmoved;  the  fickle  peas  shoot  and 
lengthen  out,  covered  with  motionless  and 
tenacious  butterflies,  as  though  June  had 
entered  the  farm-gate;  the  carrot  blushes 
as  it  faces  the  light;  the  ingenuous  straw- 
berry-plants inhale  the  flavours  which  noon- 
tide lavishes  upon  them  as  it  bends  towards 
earth  its  sapphire  urns;  the  lettuce  exerts 
itself  to  achieve  a  heart  of  gold  wherein  to 
lock  the  dews  of  morning  and  night. 

The  fruit-trees  alone  have  long  reflected : 
the  example  of  the  vegetables  among  which 
they  live  urged  them  to  join  in  the  general 
rejoicing,  but  the  rigid  attitude  of  their 
elders  from  the  North,  of  the  grandparents 
born  in  the  great  dark  forests,  preached 
prudence  to  them.  But  now  they  awaken: 
they  too  can  resist  no  longer  and  at  last 
make  up  their  minds  to  join  the  dance  of 
perfumes  and  of  love.    The  peach-trees  are 

now  no  more  than  a  rosy  miracle,  like  the 
200 


News  of  Spring 

softness  of  a  child's  skin  turned  into  azure 
vapour  by  the  breath  of  dawn.  The  pear 
and  plum  and  apple  and  almond-trees  make 
dazzling  efforts  in  drunken  rivalry;  and 
the  pale  hazel-trees,  like  Venetian  chan- 
deliers, resplendent  with  a  cascade  of 
gems,  stand  here  and  there  to  light  the 
feast.  As  for  the  luxurious  flowers  that 
seem  to  possess  no  other  object  than  them- 
selves, they  have  long  abandoned  the 
endeavour  to  solve  the  mystery  of  this 
boundless  summer.  They  no  longer  score 
the  seasons,  no  longer  count  the  days,  and, 
knowing  not  what  to  do  in  the  glowing  dis- 
array of  hours  that  have  no  shadow,  dread- 
ing lest  they  should  be  deceived  and  lose  a 
single  second  that  might  be  fair,  they  have 
resolved  to  bloom  without  respite  from 
January  to  December.  Nature  approves 
them  and,  to  reward  their  trust  in  happi- 
ness, their  generous  beauty  and  amorous 
excesses,  grants  them  a  force,  a  brilliancy 


The   Double    Garden 

and  perfumes  which  she  never  gives  to 
those  which  hang  back  and  show  a  fear  of 
life. 

All  this,  among  other  truths,  was  pro- 
claimed by  the  little  house  that  I  saw  to- 
day on  the  side  of  a  hill  all  deluged  in 
roses,  carnations,  wall-flowers,  heliotrope 
and  mignonette,  so  as  to  suggest  the  source, 
choked  and  overflowing  with  flowers, 
whence  Spring  was  preparing  to  pour  down 
upon  us;  while,  upon  the  stone  threshold 
of  the  closed  door,  pumpkins,  lemons, 
oranges,  limes  and  Turkey  figs  slumbered 
in  the  majestic,  deserted,  monotonous 
silence  of  a  perfect  day. 


202 


THE  WRATH  OF  THE   BEE 


THE  WRATH  OF  THE  BEE 
I 

SINCE  the  publication  of  "The  Life  of 
the  Bee,"  I  have  often  been  asked  to 
throw  light  upon  one  of  the  most 
dreaded  mysteries  of  the  hive,  namely,  the 
psychology  of  its  inexplicable,  sudden  and 
sometimes  mortal  wrath.  A  crowd  of  cruel 
and  unjust  legends,  in  fact,  hovers  around 
the  abode  of  the  yellow  fairies  of  the  honey. 
The  bravest  among  the  guests  who  visit  the 
garden  slacken  their  pace  and  lapse  into 
involuntary  silence  as  they  approach  the 
enclosure,  blooming  with  clover  and  migno- 
nette, where  buzz  the  daughters  of  the 
light.  Doting  mothers  keep  their  children 
away  from  it,  as  they  would  keep  them 
away  from  a  smouldering  fire  or  a  nest  of 
205 


The  Double    Garden 

adders;  nor  does  the  bee-keeping  novice, 
gloved  in  leather,  veiled  in  gauze,  sur- 
rounded by  clouds  of  smoke,  face  the 
mystic  citadel  without  that  little  unavowed 
shiver  which  men  feel  before  a  great  battle. 
How  much  reason  is  there  at  the  bottom 
of  these  traditional  fears  ?  Is  the  bee  really 
dangerous?  Does  she  allow  herself  to  be 
tamed?  Is  there  a  risk  in  approaching  the 
hives?  Ought  we  to  flee  or  to  face  their 
wrath?  Has  the  bee-keeper  some  secret  or 
some  talisman  that  preserves  him  from 
being  stung?  These  are  the  questions  that 
are  anxiously  put  by  all  those  who  have 
started  a  timid  hive  and  who  are  beginning 
their  apprenticeship. 

II 

The  bee,    in   general,  is   neither   ill-dis- 
posed nor  aggressive,    but   appears   some- 
what capricious.    She  has  an  unconquerable 
antipathy  to  certain  people ;  she  also  has 
ao6 


The  Wrath  of  the  Bee 

days  of  enervation — for  instance,  when  a 
storm  is  at  hand — on  which  she  shows  her- 
self extremely  irritable.  She  has  a  most 
subtle  and  susceptible  sense  of  smell;  she 
tolerates  no  perfume  and  detests,  above  all, 
the  scent  of  human  sweat  and  of  alcohol. 
She  is  not  to  be  tamed,  in  the  proper  sense 
of  the  word;  but,  whereas  the  hives  which 
we  seldom  visit  become  crabbed  and  dis- 
trustful, those  which  we  surround  with  our 
daily  cares  soon  grow  accustomed  to  the 
discreet  and  prudent  presence  of  man. 
Lastly,  to  enable  us  to  handle  the  bees 
almost  without  impunity,  there  exist  a  cer- 
tain number  of  little  expedients  which  vary 
according  to  circumstances  and  which  can 
be  learnt  by  practice  alone.  But  it  is  time 
to  reveal  the  great  secret  of  their  wrath. 

Ill 

The  bee,  essentially  so  pacific,  so  long- 
suffering,    the    bee,    which    never    stings 
207 


The  Double    Garden 

(unless  you  crush  her)  when  looting  among 
the  flowers,  once  she  has  returned  to  her 
kingdom  with  the  waxen  monuments, 
retains  her  mild  and  tolerant  character,  or 
grows  violent  and  deadly  dangerous, 
according  as  her  maternal  city  be  opulent  or 
poor.  Here  again,  as  often  happena  when 
we  study  the  manners  of  this  spirited  and 
mysterious  little  people,  the  provisions  of 
human  logic  are  utterly  at  fault.  It  would 
be  natural  that  the  bees  should  defend 
desperately  treasures  so  laboriously 
amassed,  a  city  such  as  we  find  in  good 
apiaries,  where  the  nectar,  overflowing  the 
numberless  cells  that  represent  thousands  of 
casks  piled  from  cellar  to  garret,  streams  in 
golden  stalactites  along  the  rustling  walls 
and  sends  far  afield,  in  glad  response  to  the 
ephemeral  perfumes  of  calyces  that  are 
opening,  the  more  lasting  perfume  of  the 
honey  that  keeps  alive  the  memory  of 
calyces  which  time  has  closed.  Now  this  is 
ao8 


The  Wrath  of  the  Bee 

not  the  case.  The  richer  their  abode,  the 
less  eagerness  they  display  to  fight  around 
it.  Open  or  turn  over  a  wealthy  hive;  if 
you  take  care  to  drive  the  sentries  from  the 
entrance  with  a  puff  of  smoke,  it  will  be 
extremely  rare  for  the  other  bees  to  contend 
with  you  for  the  liquid  booty  conquered 
from  the  smiles,  from  all  the  charms  of  the 
beautiful  azure  months.  Try  the  experi- 
ment; I  promise  you  impunity,  if  you  touch 
only  the  heavier  hives.  You  can  turn  them 
over  and  empty  them;  those  throbbing 
flagons  are  perfectly  harmless.  What  does 
it  mean?  Have  the  fierce  amazons  lost 
courage?  Has  abundance  unnerved  them, 
and  have  they,  after  the  manner  of  the  too 
fortunate  inhabitants  of  luxurious  towns, 
delegated  the  dangerous  duties  to  the 
unhappy  mercenaries  who  keep  watch  at  the 
gates  ?  No,  it  has  never  been  observed  that 
the  greatest  good  fortune  relaxes  the  valour 
of  the  bee.  On  the  contrary,  the  more  the 
209 


The  Double    Garden 

republic  prospers,  the  more  harshly  and 
severely  are  its  laws  applied,  and  the 
worker  in  a  hive  where  superfluity  accumu- 
lates labours  much  more  zealously  than  her 
sister  in  an  indigent  hive.  There  are  other 
reasons  which  we  cannot  wholly  fathom, 
but  which  are  likely  reasons,  if  only  we  take 
into  account  the  wild  interpretation  which 
the  poor  bee  must  needs  place  upon  our 
monstrous  doings.  Seeing  suddenly  her 
huge  dwelling-place  upheaved,  overturned, 
half-opened,  she  probably  imagines  that  an 
inevitable,  a  natural  catastrophe  is  occur- 
ring against  which  it  were  madness  to  strug- 
gle. She  no  longer  resists,  but  neither  does 
she  flee.  Admitting  the  ruin,  it  looks  as 
though  already,  in  her  instinct,  she  saw  the 
future  dwelling  which  she  hopes  to  build 
with  the  materials  taken  from  the  gutted 
town.  She  leaves  the  present  defenceless  in 
order  to  save  the  hereafter.  Or  else,  per- 
haps, does  she,  like  the  dog  in  the  fable, 

210 


The  Wrath  of  the  Bee 

"the  dog  that  carried  his  master's  dinner 
round  his  neck,"  knowing  that  all  is  irre- 
parably lost,  prefer  to  die  taking  her  share 
of  the  pillage  and  to  pass  from  life  to  death 
in  one  prodigious  orgy?  We  do  not  know 
for  certain.  How  should  we  penetrate  the 
motives  of  the  bee,  when  those  of  the 
simplest  actions  of  our  brothers  are  beyond 
our  ken  ? 

IV 

Still,  the  fact  is  that,  at  each  great  proof 
to  which  the  city  is  put,  at  each  trouble  that 
appears  to  the  bees  to  possess  an  inevitable 
character,  no  sooner  has  the  infatuation 
spread  from  one  to  the  other  among  the 
densely  quivering  people  than  the  bees  fling 
themselves  upon  their  combs,  violently  tear 
the  sacred  lids  from  the  provisions  for  the 
winter,  topple  head  foremost  and  plunge 
their  whole  bodies  into  the  sweet-smelling 
vats,  imbibe  with  long  draughts  the  chaste 

211 


The  Double    Garden 

wine  of  the  flowers,  gorge  themselves  with 
it,  intoxicate  themselves  with  it,  till  their 
bronze-ringed  forms  lengthen  and  dis- 
tend like  compressed  leather  bottles. 
Now  the  bee,  when  swollen  with  honey,  can 
no  longer  curve  her  abdomen  at  the  angle 
required  to  draw  her  sting.  She  becomes, 
so  to  speak,  mechanically  harmless  from 
that  moment.  It  is  generally  imagined  that 
the  beekeeper  employs  the  fumigator  to 
stun,  to  half-asphyxiate  the  warriors  that 
gather  their  treasure  in  the  blue  and  thus 
to  effect  an  entrance  by  favour  of  a  defence- 
less slumber  into  the  palace  of  the  innum- 
erous  sleeping  amazons.  This  is  a  mis- 
take: the  smoke  serves  first  to  drive  back 
the  guardians  of  the  threshold,  who  are 
ever  on  the  alert  and  extremely  quarrel- 
some; then,  two  or  three  puffs  come  to 
spread  panic  among  the  workers :  the  panic 
provokes  the  mysterious  orgy,  and  the  orgy 
helplessness.     Thus  is  the  fact  explained 

212 


The  Wrath  of  the  Bee 

that,  with  bare  arms  and  unprotected  face, 
one  can  open  the  most  populous  hives, 
examine  their  combs,  shake  off  the  bees, 
spread  them  at  one's  feet,  heap  them  up, 
pour  them  out  Hke  grains  of  corn  and 
quietly  gather  the  honey,  in  the  midst  of  the 
deafening  cloud  of  ousted  workers,  without 
having  to  suffer  a  single  sting. 


But  woe  to  whoso  touches  the  poor  hives  I 
Keep  away  from  the  abodes  of  want  I 
Here,  smoke  has  lost  its  spell,  and  you  shall 
scarce  have  emitted  the  first  puffs  before 
twenty  thousand  acrid  and  enraged  demons 
will  dart  from  within  the  walls,  overwhelm 
your  hands,  blind  your  eyes  and  blacken 
your  face.  No  living  being,  except,  they 
say,  the  bear  and  the  Sphinx  Atropos,  can 
resist  the  rage  of  the  mailed  legions. 
Above  all,  do  not  struggle :  the  fury  would 
213 


The  Double    Garden 

overtake  the  neighbouring  colonies ;  and  the 
smell  of  the  spilt  venom  would  enrage  all 
the  republics  around.  There  is  no  means 
of  safety  other  than  instant  flight  through 
the  bushes.  The  bee  is  less  rancorous,  less 
implacable  than  the  wasp  and  rarely  pursues 
her  enemy.  If  flight  be  impossible,  abso- 
lute immobility  alone  might  calm  her  or  put 
her  off  the  scent.  She  fears  and  attacks  any 
too  sudden  movement,  but  at  once  forgives 
that  which  no  longer  stirs. 

The  poor  hives  live,  or  rather  die  from 
day  to  day,  and  it  is  because  they  have  no 
honey  in  their  cellars  that  smoke  makes  no 
impression  on  them.  They  cannot  gorge 
themselves  like  their  sisters  that  belong  to 
happier  tribes;  the  possibilities  of  a  future 
city  are  not  there  to  divert  their  ardour. 
Their  only  thought  is  to  perish  on  the  out- 
raged threshold,  and,  lean,  shrunk,  nimble, 
unrestrained,  they  defend  it  with  unheard- 
of  heroism  and  desperation.  Therefore,  the 
214 


The  Wrath  of  the  Bee 

cautious  beekeeper  never  displaces  the  indi- 
gent hives  without  making  a  preliminary 
sacrifice  to  the  hungry  Furies.  His  offering 
is  a  honey-comb.  They  come  hastening  up 
and  then,  the  smoke  assisting,  they  distend 
and  intoxicate  themselves:  behold  them 
reduced  to  helplessness  like  the-  rich 
burgesses  of  the  plentiful  cells. 


VI 


One  could  find  much  more  to  tell  of  the 
wrath  of  the  bees  and  their  singular  antipa- 
thies. These  antipathies  are  often  so 
strange  that  they  were  for  long  attributed, 
that  they  are  still  attributed,  by  the  peas- 
ants, to  moral  causes,  to  profound  and  mys- 
tic intuitions.  There  is  the  conviction,  for 
instance,  that  the  vestal  vintagers  cannot 
endure  the  approach  of  the  unchaste,  above 
all  of  the  adulterous.  It  would  be  sur- 
prising if  the  most  rational  beings  that  live 
215 


The  Double    Garden 

with  us  on  this  incomprehensible  globe  were 
to  attach  so  much  importance  to  a  trespass 
that  is  often  very  harmless.  In  reality,  they 
give  it  no  thought;  but  they,  whose  whole 
life  sways  to  the  nuptial  and  sumptuous 
breath  of  the  flowers,  abhor  the  perfumes 
which  we  steal  from  them.  Are  we  to  be- 
lieve that  chastity  exhales  fewer  odours  than 
love?  Is  this  the  origin  of  the  rancour  of 
the  jealous  bees  and  of  the  legend  that 
avenges  virtues  as  jealous  as  they?  Be  this 
as  it  may,  the  legend  must  be  classed  with 
the  many  others  that  pretend  to  do  great 
honour  to  the  phenomena  of  nature  by 
ascribing  human  feelings  to  them.  It  would 
be  better,  on  the  contrary,  to  mix  our  petty 
human  psychology  as  little  as  possible  with 
all  that  we  do  not  easily  understand,  to  seek, 
our  explanations  only  without,  on  this  side 
of  man  or  on  that  side;  for  it  is  probably 
there  that  lie  the  positive  revelations  which 
we  are  still  awaiting. 
216 


FIELD    FLOWERS 


FIELD  FLOWERS 
I 

THEY  welcome  our  steps  without  the 
city  gates,  on  a  gay  and  eager  carpet 
of  many  colours,  which  they  wave 
madly  in  the  sunlight.  It  is  evident  that 
they  were  expecting  us.  When  the  first 
bright  rays  of  March  appeared,  the  Snow- 
drop, or  Amaryllis,  the  heroic  daughter  of 
the  hoar-frost,  sounded  the  reveille.  .Next 
sprang  from  the  earth  efforts,  as  yet  shape- 
less, of  a  slumbering  memory :  vague  ghosts 
of  flowers;  pale  flowers  that  are  scarcely 
flowers  at  all:  the  three-fingered  Saxifrage, 
or  Samphire;  the  almost  invisible  Shep- 
herd's Pouch;  the  two-leaved  Squill;  the 
Stinking  Hellebore,  or  Christmas  Rose ;  the 
Colt's  Foot;  the  gloomy  and  poisonous 
Spurge  Laurel:  all  plants  of  frail  and 
219 


The  Double    Garden 

doubtful  health,  pale-blue,  pale-pink,  unde- 
cided attempts,  the  first  fever  of  life  in 
which  nature  expels  her  ill  humours, 
anaemic  captives  set  free  by  winter,  convales- 
cent patients  from  the  underground  prisons, 
timid  and  unskilful  endeavours  of  the  still 
buried  light. 

But  soon  this  light  ventures  forth  into 
space;  the  nuptial  thoughts  of  the  earth 
become  clearer  and  purer;  the  rough 
attempts  disappear;  the  half-dreams  of  the 
night  lift  like  a  fog  dispelled  by  the  dawn; 
and  the  good  rustic  flowers  begin  their 
unseen  revels  under  the  blue,  all  around  the 
cities  where  man  knows  them  not.  No 
matter,  they  are  there,  making  honey,  while 
their  proud  and  barren  sisters,  who  alone 
receive  our  care,  are  still  trembling  in 
the  depths  of  the  hot-houses.  They  will 
still  be  there,  in  the  flooded  fields,  in  the 
broken  paths,  and  adorning  the  roads  with 
their  simplicity,  when  the  first  snows  shall 

220 


Field   Flowers 

have  covered  the  country-side.  No  one 
sows  them  and  no  one  gathers  them.  They 
survive  their  glory,  and  man  treads  them 
under  foot.  Formerly,  however,  and  not 
so  long  ago,  they  alone  represented  Nature's 
gladness.  Formerly,  however,  a  few  hun- 
dred years  ago,  before  their  dazzling  and 
chilly  kinswomen  had  come  from  the 
Antilles,  from  India,  from  Japan,  or  before 
their  own  daughters,  ungrateful  and  unrec- 
ognizable, had  usurped  their  place,  they 
alone  enlivened  the  stricken  gaze,  they 
alone  brightened  the  cottage  porch,  the 
castle  precincts,  and  followed  the  lovers' 
footsteps  in  the  woods.  But  those  times 
are  no  more;  and  they  are  dethroned.  They 
have  retained  of  their  past  happiness  only 
the  names  which  they  received  when  they 
were  loved. 

And  these  names  show  all  that  they  were 
to  man :  all  his  gratitude,  his  studious  fond- 
ness, all  that  he  owed  them,  all  that  they 

221 


The  Double    Garden 

gave  him  are  there  contained,  like  a  secular 
aroma  in  hollow  pearls.  And  so  they  bear 
names  of  queens,  shepherdesses,  virgins, 
princesses,  sylphs  and  fairies,  which  flow 
from  the  lips  like  a  caress,  a  lightning- 
flash,  a  kiss,  a  murmur  of  love.  Our 
language,  I  think,  contains  nothing  that 
is  better,  more  daintily,  more  affection- 
ately named  than  these  homely  flowers. 
Here  the  word  clothes  the  idea  almost 
always  with  care,  with  light  preci- 
sion, with  admirable  happiness.  It  is  like 
an  ornate  and  transparent  stuff  that  moulds 
the  form  which  it  embraces  and  has  the 
proper  shade,  perfume  and  sound.  Call  to 
mind  the  Easter  Daisy,  the  Violet,  the  Blue- 
bell, the  Poppy,  or,  rather,  Coquelicot:  the 
name  is  the  flower  itself.  How  wonderful, 
for  instance,  that  sort  of  cry  and  crest  of 
light  and  joy:  "Coquelicot!"  to  designate 
the  scarlet  flower  which  the  scientists  crush 
under  this  barbarous  title :  Papaver  rhaeas/ 

222 


Field  Flowers 

See  the  Primrose,  or,  rather,  the  Cowslip, 
the  Periwinkle,  the  Anemone,  the  Wild 
Hyacinth,  the  blue  Speedwell,  the  Forget- 
me-not,  the  Wild  Bindweed,  the  Iris,  the 
Harebell :  their  name  depicts  them  by  equi- 
valents and  analogies  which  the  greatest 
poets  but  rarely  light  upon.  It  represents  all 
their  ingenuous  and  visible  soul.  It  hides 
itself,  it  bends  over,  it  rises  to  the  ear  even 
as  those  who  bear  it  lie  concealed,  stoop 
forward,  or  stand  erect  in  the  corn  and  in 
the  grass. 

These  are  the  few  names  that  are  known 
to  all  of  us;  we  do  not  know  the  others, 
though  their  music  describes  with  the  same 
gentleness,  the  same  happy  genius,  flowers 
which  we  see  by  every  wayside  and  upon  all 
the  paths.  Thus,  at  this  moment,  that  is  to 
say,  at  the  end  of  the  month  in  which  the 
ripe  corn  falls  beneath  the  reaper's  sickle, 
the  banks  of  the  roads  are  a  pale  violet :  it  is 
the  Sweet  Scabious,  who  has  blossomed  at 
223 


The  Double    Garden 

last,  discreet,  aristocratically  poor  and  mod- 
estly beautiful,  as  her  title,  that  of  a  mist- 
veiled  precious  stone,  proclaims.  Around 
her,  a  treasure  lies  scattered:  it  is  the  Ra- 
nunculus, or  Buttercup,  who  has  two  names, 
even  as  he  has  two  lives;  for  he  is  at 
once  the  innocent  virgin  that  covers  the 
grass  with  sun-drops,  and  the  redoubta- 
ble and  venomous  wizard  that  deals 
out  death  to  heedless  animals.  Again 
we  have  the  Milfoil  and  the  St.  John's 
Wort,  little  flowers,  once  useful,  that  march 
along  the  roads,  like  silent  school-girls,  clad 
in  a  dull  uniform;  the  vulgar  and  innumer- 
ous  Bird's  Groundsel;  her  big  brother,  the 
Hare's  Lettuce  of  the  fields ;  then  the  dan- 
gerous black  Nightshade;  the  Bitter-sweet, 
who  hides  herself:  the  creeping  Knotweed, 
with  the  patient  leaves:  all  the  families 
without  show,  with  the  resigned  smile, 
wearing  the  practical  grey  livery  of  autumn, 
which  already  is  felt  to  be  at  hand. 
aa4 


Field  Flowers 
II 

But,  among  those  of  March,  April,  May, 
June,  July,  remember  the  glad  and  festive 
names,  the  springtime  syllables,  the  vocables 
of  azure  and  dawn,  of  moonlight  and  sun- 
shine !  Here  is  the  Snowdrop,  or  Amaryllis, 
who  proclaims  the  thaw ;  the  Stitchwort,  or 
Lady's  Collar,  who  greets  the  first-com- 
municants along  the  hedges,  whose  leaves 
are  as  yet  indeterminate  and  uncertain,  like 
a  diaphanous  green  lye.  Here  are  the  sad 
Columbine  and  the  Field  Sage,  the  Jasione, 
the  Angelica,  the  Field  Fennel,  the  Wall- 
flower, dressed  like  a  servant  of  a  village- 
priest  ;  the  Osmond,  who  is  a  king  fern ;  the 
Luzula,  the  Parmella,  the  Venus'  Looking- 
glass;  the  Esula  or  Wood  Spurge,  myste- 
rious and  full  of  sombre  fire;  the  Physalldis, 
whose  fruit  ripens  in  a  lantern;  the  Hen- 
bane, the  Belladonna,  the  Digitalis,  poison- 
ous queens,  veiled  Cleopatras  of  the  untilled 
225 


The  Double    Garden 

places  and  the  cool  woods.  And  then, 
again,  the  Camomile,  the  good-capped 
Sister  with  a  thousand  smiles,  bringing  the 
health-giving  brew  in  an  earthenware  bowl ; 
the  Pimpernel  and  the  Coronilla,  the  pale 
Mint  and  the  pink  Thyme,  the  Sainfoin  and 
the  Euphrasy,  the  Ox-eye  Daisy,  the  mauve 
Gentian  and  the  blue  Verbena,  the  Anthe- 
mis,  the  lance-shaped  Horse-Thistle,  the 
Cinquefoil  or  Potentilla,  the  Dyer's  Weed 
....  to  tell  their  names  is  to  recite  a 
poem  of  grace  and  light.  We  have 
reserved  for  them  the  most  charm- 
ing, the  purest,  the  clearest  sounds  and 
all  the  musical  gladness  of  the  lan- 
guage. One  would  think  that  they  were 
the  persons  of  a  play,  dancers  and 
choristers  of  an  immense  fairy-scene,  more 
beautiful,  more  startling  and  more  super- 
natural than  the  scenes  that  unfold  them- 
selves on  Prospero's  Island,  at  the  Court  of 
Theseus,  or  in  the  Forest  of  Arden.    And 

226 


Field  Flowers 

the  comely  actresses  of  this  silent,  never- 
ending  comedy — goddesses,  angels,  she- 
devils,  princesses  and  witches,  virgins  and 
courtezans,  queens  and  shepherd-girls — 
carry  in  the  folds  of  their  names  the  magic 
sheens  of  innumerous  dawns,  of  innumerous 
springtimes  contemplated  by  forgotten  men, 
even  as  they  also  carry  the  memory  of 
thousands  of  deep  or  fleeting  emotions 
which  were  felt  before  them  by  generations 
that  have  disappeared,  leaving  no  other 
trace. 

Ill 

They  are  interesting  and  incomprehensi- 
ble. They  are  vaguely  called  the  "Weeds." 
They  serve  no  purpose.  Here  and  there,  a 
few,  in  very  old  villages,  retain  the  spell  of 
contested  virtues.  Here  and  there,  one  of 
them,  right  at  the  bottom  of  the  apothe- 
cary's or  herbalist's  jars,  still  awaits  the 
227 


The  Double    Garden 

coming  of  the  sick  man  faithful  to  the 
infusions  of  tradition.  But  sceptic  medicine 
will  have  none  of  them.  No  longer  are 
they  gathered  according  to  the  olden  rites; 
and  the  science  of  "Simples"  is  dying  out  in 
the  housewife's  memory.  A  merciless  war 
is  waged  upon  them.  The  husbandman 
fears  them;  the  plough  pursues  them;  the 
gardener  hates  them  and  has  armed  himself 
against  them  with  clashing  weapons :  the 
spade  and  the  rake,  the  hoe  and  the  scraper, 
the  weeding-hook,  the  grubbing-axe.  Along 
the  high-roads,  their  last  refuge,  the  passer- 
by crushes  them,  the  waggon  bruises  them. 
In  spite  of  all,  they  are  there:  permanent, 
assured,  abundant,  peaceful;  and  not  one 
but  answers  the  summons  of  the  sun.  They 
follow  the  seasons  without  swerving  by  an 
hour.  They  take  no  account  of  man,  who 
exhaust-s  himself  in  conquering  them,  and, 
so  soon  as  he  rests,  they  spring  up  in  his 
footsteps.    They  live  on,  audacious,  immor- 


Field  Flowers 

tal,  untamable.  They  have  peopled  our 
flower-baskets  with  extravagant  and  unnat- 
ural daughters ;  but  they,  the  poor  mothers, 
have  remained  similar  to  what  they  were  a 
hundred  thousand  years  ago.  They  have 
not  added  a  fold  to  their  petals,  reordered 
a  pistil,  altered  a  shade,  invented  a  perfume. 
They  keep  the  secret  of  a  mysterious  mis- 
sion. They  are  the  indelible  primitives. 
The  soil  is  theirs  since  its  origin.  They 
represent,  in  short,  an  essential  smile,  an 
invariable  thought,  an  obstinate  desire  of 
the  Earth. 

That  is  why  it  is  well  to  question  them. 
They  have  evidently  something  to  tell  us. 
And,  then,  let  us  not  forget  that  they  were 
the  first — with  the  sunrises  and  sunsets,  with 
the  springs  and  autumns,  with  the  song  of 
the  birds,  with  the  hair,  the  glance  and  the 
divine  movements  of  women — to  teach  our 
fathers  that  there  are  useless  and  beautiful 

things  upon  this  globe. 
229 


CHRYSANTHEMUMS 


CHRYSANTHEMUMS 
I 

EVERY  year,  in  November,  at  the  sea- 
son that  follows  on  the  hour  of  the 
dead,  the  crowning  and  majestic 
hour  of  autumn,  reverently  I  go  to  visit  the 
chrysanthemums  in  the  places  where  chance 
offers  them  to  my  sight.  For  the  rest,  it 
matters  little  where  they  are  shown  to  me 
by  the  good  will  of  travel  or  of  sojourn. 
They  are,  indeed,  the  most  universal,  the 
most  diverse  of  flowers;  but  their  diversity 
and  surprises  are,  so  to  speak,  concerted, 
like  those  of  fashion,  in  I  know  not  what 
arbitrary  Edens.  At  the  same  moment, 
even  as  with  silks,  laces,  jewels  and  curls,  a 
mysterious  voice  gives  the  pass-word  in  time 
and  space;  and,  docile  as  the  most  beauti- 
■      233 


The    Double  Garden 

ful  women,  simultaneously,  in  every  coun- 
try, in  every  latitude,  the  flowers  obey  the 
sacred  decree. 

It  is  enough,  then,  to  enter  at  random  one 
of  those  crystal  museums  in  which  their 
somewhat  funereal  riches  are  displayed 
under  the  harmonious  veil  of  the  days  of 
November.  We  at  once  grasp  the  domi- 
nant idea,  the  obtrusive  beauty,  the  unex- 
pected effort  of  the  year  in  this  special 
world,  strange  and  privileged  even  in  the 
midst  of  the  strange  and  privileged  world 
of  flowers.  And  we  ask  ourselves  if  this 
new  idea  is  a  profound  and  really  necessary 
idea  on  the  part  of  the  sun,  the  earth,  life, 
autumn,  or  man. 

II 

Yesterday,  then,  I  went  to  admire  the 
year's  gentle  and  gorgeous  floral  feast,  the 
last  which   the   snows  of   December   and 
234 


Chrysanthemums 

January,  like  a  broad  belt  of  peace,  sleep, 
silence  and  night,  separate  from  the  deli- 
cious festivals  that  commence  again  with 
the  germination  (powerful  already,  though 
hardly  visible)  that  seeks  the  light  in  Feb- 
ruary. 

They  are  there,  under  the  immense  trans- 
parent dome,  the  noble  flowers  of  the 
month  of  fogs;  they  are  there,  at  the  royal 
meeting-place,  all  the  grave  little  autumn 
fairies,  whose  dances  and  attitudes  seem  to 
have  been  struck  motionless  with  a  single 
word.  The  eye  that  recognizes  them  and 
has  learned  to  love  them  perceives,  at  the 
first  pleased  glance,  that  they  have  actively 
and  dutifully  continued  to  evolve  towards 
their  uncertain  ideal.  Go  back  for  a 
moment  to  their  modest  origin :  look  at  the 
poor  buttercup  of  yore,  the  humble  little 
crimson  or  damask  rose  that  still  smiles 
sadly,  along  the  roads  full  of  dead  leaves, 
in  the  scanty  garden-patches  of  our  villages ; 
235 


The   Double    Garden 

compare  with  them  these  enormous  masses 
and  fleeces  of  snow,  these  disks  and  globes 
of  red  copper,  these  spheres  of  old  silver, 
these  trophies  of  alabaster  and  amethyst, 
this  delirious  prodigy  of  petals  which  seems 
to  be  trying  to  exhaust  to  its  last  riddle  the 
world  of  autumnal  shapes  and  shades  which 
the  winter  entrusts  to  the  bosom  of  the 
sleeping  woods;  let  the  unwonted  and 
unexpected  varieties  pass  before  your  eyes; 
admire  and  appraise  them. 

Here,  for  instance,  is  the  marvellous 
family  of  the  stars :  flat  stars,  bursting  stars, 
diaphanous  stars,  solid  and  fleshly  stars, 
milky  ways  and  constellations  of  the  earth 
that  correspond  with  those  of  the  firma- 
ment. Here  are  the  proud  plumes  that 
await  the  diamonds  of  the  dew;  here,  to 
put  our  dreams  to  shame,  the  fascinating 
poem  of  unreal  tresses:  wise,  precise  and 
meticulous  tresses;  mad  and  miraculous 
tresses ;  honeyed  moonbeams,  golden  bushes 
836 


Chrysanthemums 

and  flaming  whirlpools;  curls  of  fair  and 
smiling  maidens,  of  fleeing  nymphs,  of  pas- 
sionate bacchantes,  of  swooning  sirens,  of 
cold  virgins,  of  frolicsome  children,  whom 
angels,  mothers,  fauns,  lovers  have  caressed 
with  their  calm  or  quivering  hands.  And 
then,  here,  pell-mell,  are  the  monsters  that 
cannot  be  classed:  hedgehogs,  spiders, 
curly  endives,  pine-apples,  pompons,  Tudor 
roses,  shells,  vapours,  breaths,  stalactites  of 
ice  and  falling  snow,  a  throbbing  hail  of 
sparks,  wings,  flashes,  fluffy,  pulpy,  fleshy 
things,  wattles,  bristles,  funeral  piles  and 
sky-rockets,  bursts  of  light,  a  stream  of  fire 
and  sulphur. 


Ill 


Now  that  the  shapes  have  capitulated 

comes  the  question  of  conquering  the  region 

of  the  proscribed  colours,  of  the  reserved 

shades,  which  the   autumn,  as  we  can  see, 

237 


The  Double    Garden 

denies  to  the  flowers  that  represent  it.  Lav- 
ishly it  bestows  on  them  all  the  wealth  of 
the  twilight  and  the  night,  all  the  riches  of 
the  harvest-time :  it  gives  them  all  the  mud- 
brown  work  of  the  rain  in  the  woods,  all 
the  silvery  fashionings  of  the  mist  in  the 
plains,  of  the  frost  and  the  snow  in  the 
gardens.  It  permits  them,  above  all,  to 
draw  at  will  upon  the  inexhaustible  treas- 
ures of  the  dead  leaves  and  the  expiring 
forest.  It  allows  them  to  deck  themselves 
with  the  golden  sequins,  the  bronze  medals, 
the  silver  buckles,  the  copper  spangles,  the 
elfin  plumes,  the  powdered  amber,  the 
burnt  topazes,  the  neglected  pearls,  the 
smoked  amethysts,  the  calcined  garnets,  all 
the  dead  but  still  dazzling  jewellery  which 
the  North  Wind  heaps  up  in  the  hollows  of 
ravines  and  foot-paths;  but  it  insists  that 
they  shall  remain  faithful  to  their  old 
masters  and  wear  the  livery  of  the  drab  and 
weary  months  that  give  them  birth.  It  does 
238 


Chrysanthemums 

not  permit  them  to  betray  those  masters  and 
to  don  the  princely,  changing  dresses  of  the 
spring  and  the  dawn;  and,  if,  sometimes,  it 
suffers  a  pink,  this  is  only  on  condition  that 
it  be  borrowed  from  the  cold  lips,  the  pale 
brow  of  the  veiled  and  afflicted  virgin  pray- 
ing on  a  tomb.  It  forbids  most  strictly  the 
tints  of  summer,  of  too  youthful,  ardent 
and  serene  a  life,  of  a  health  too  joyous  and 
expansive.  In  no  case  will  it  consent  to 
hilarious  vermilions,  impetuous  scarlets, 
imperious  and  dazzling  purples.  As  for 
the  blues,  from  the  azure  of  the  dawn  to 
the  indigo  of  the  sea  and  the  deep  lakes, 
from  the  periwinkle  to  the  borage  and  the 
corn-flower,  they  are  banished  on  pain  of 
death. 

IV 

Nevertheless,  thanks  to  some  forgetful- 
ness  of  nature,  the  most  unusual  colour  in 
239 


The  Double    Garden 

the  world  of  flowers  and  the  most  severely 
forbidden — the  colour  which  the  corolla  of 
the  poisonous  euphorbia  is  almost  the  only 
one  to  wear  in  the  city  of  the  umbels,  petals 
and  calyces — green,  the  colour  exclusively 
reserved  for  the  servile  and  nutrient  leaves, 
has  penetrated  within  the  jealously-guarded 
precincts.  True,  it  has  slipped  in  only  by 
favour  of  a  lie,  as  a  traitor,  a  spy,  a  livid 
deserter.  It  is  a  forsworn  yellow,  steeped 
fearfully  in  the  fugitive  azure  of  the  moon- 
beam. It  is  still  of  the  night  and  false, 
like  the  opal  depths  of  the  sea;  it  reveals 
itself  only  in  shifting  patches  at  the  tips  of 
the  petals;  it  is  vague  and  anxious,  frail 
and  elusive,  but  undeniable.  It  has  made 
its  entrance,  it  exists,  it  asserts  itself;  it  will 
be  daily  more  fixed  and  more  determined; 
and,  through  the  breach  which  it  has  con- 
trived, all  the  joys  and  all  the  splendours 
of  the  banished  prism  will  hurl  themselves 
into  their  virgin  domain,  there  to  prepare 
240 


Chrysanthemums 

unaccustomed  feasts  for  our  eyes.  This  Is 
a  great  tiding  and  a  memorable  conquest  in 
the  land  of  flowers. 

We  must  not  think  that  it  is  puerile  thus 
to  interest  one's  self  in  the  capricious  forms, 
the  unwritten  shades  of  a  humble,  useless 
flower,  nor  must  we  treat  those  who  seek  to 
make  it  more  beautiful  or  more  strange  as 
La  Bruyere  once  treated  the  lover  of  the 
tulip  or  the  plum.  Do  you  remember  the 
charming  page  ? 

"The  lover  of  flowers  has  a  garden 
in  the  suburbs,  where  he  spends  all  his  time 
from  sunrise  to  sunset.  You  see  him  stand- 
ing there  and  would  think  that  he  had  taken 
root  in  the  midst  of  his  tulips  before  his 
'Solitaire;'  he  opens  his  eyes  wide,  rubs  his 
hands,  stoops  down  and  looks  closer  at  it;  it 
never  before  seemed  to  him  so  handsome; 
he  is  in  an  ecstasy  of  joy,  and  leaves  it  to  go 
to  the  'Orient,'  then  to  the  'Widow,'  from 
241 


The   Double    Garden 

thence  to  the  'Cloth  of  Gold,'  on  to  the 
'Agatha,'  and  at  last  returns  to  the  'Soli- 
taire,' where  he  remains,  is  tired  out,  sits 
down,  and  forgets  his  dinner;  he  looks  at 
the  tulip  and  admires  its  shade,  shape, 
colour,  sheen  and  edges,  its  beautiful  form 
and  calyc;  but  God  and  nature  are  not  in 
his  thoughts,  for  they  do  not  go  beyond  the 
bulb  of  his  tulip,  which  he  would  not  sell 
for  a  thousand  crowns,  though  he  will  give 
it  to  you  for  nothing  when  tulips  are  no 
longer  in  fashion  and  carnations  are  all  the 
rage.  This  rational  being,  who  has  a  soul 
and  professes  some  religion,  comes  home 
tired  and  half  starved,  but  very  pleased 
with  his  day's  work:  he  has  seen  some 
tulips, 

"Talk  to  another  of  the  healthy  look  of 
the  crops,  of  a  plentiful  harvest,  of  a  good 
vintage,  and  you  will  find  that  he  cares  only 
for  fruit  and  understands  not  a  single  word 
that  you  say ;  then  turn  to  figs  and  melons ; 
242 


Chrysanthemums 

tell  him  that  this  year  the  pear-trees  are  so 
heavily  laden  with  fruit  that  the  branches 
almost  break,  that  there  are  abundance  of 
peaches,  and  you  address  him  in  a  language 
which  he  completely  ignores,  and  he  will 
not  answer  you,  for  his  sole  hobby  is  plum- 
trees.  Do  not  even  speak  to  him  of  your 
plum-trees,  for  he  is  fond  of  only  a  certain 
kind  and  laughs  and  sneers  at  the  mention 
of  any  others;  he  takes  you  to  his  tree  and 
cautiously  gathers  this  exquisite  plum, 
divides  it,  gives  you  one  half,  keeps  the 
other  himself  and  exclaims,  'How  delicious ! 
Do  you  like  it?  Is  it  not  heavenly?  You 
cannot  find  its  equal  anywhere;'  and  then 
his  nostrils  dilate,  and  he  can  hardly  con- 
tain his  joy  and  pride  under  an  appearance 
of  modesty.  What  a  wonderful  person, 
never  enough  praised  and  admired,  whose 
name  will  be  handed  down  to  future  ages ! 
Let  me  look  at  his  mien  and  shape,  while  he 
is  still  in  the  land  of  the  living,  that  I  may 
243 


The    Double  Garden 

study  the  features  and  the  countenance  of  a 
man  who,  alone  among  mortals,  is  the 
happy  possessor  of  such  a  plum." 

Well,  La  Bruyere  is  wrong.  We  readily 
forgive  him  his  mistake,  for  the  sake  of  the 
marvellous  window,  which  he,  alone  among 
the  authors  of  his  time,  opens  upon  the 
unexpected  gardens  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury. The  fact  none  the  less  remains  that 
it  is  to  his  somewhat  bigoted  florist,  to  his 
somewhat  frenzied  horticulturist  that  we 
owe  our  exquisite  flower-beds,  our  more 
varied,  more  abundant,  more  luscious  vege- 
tables, our  even  more  delicious  fruits.  Con- 
template, for  instance,  around  the  chrysan- 
themums, the  marvels  that  ripen  nowadays 
in  the  meanest  gardens,  among  the  long 
branches  wisely  subdued  by  the  patient  and 
generous  espaliers.  Less  than  a  century 
ago,  they  were  unknown ;  and  we  owe  them 
to  the  trifling  and  innumerable  exertions  of 
244 


Chrysanthemums 

a  legion  of  small  seekers,  all  more  or  less 
narrow,  all  more  or  less  ridiculous. 

It  is  thus  that  man  acquires  nearly  all  his 
riches.  There  is  nothing  that  is  puerile  in 
nature;  and  he  who  becomes  impassioned 
of  a  flower,  a  blade  of  grass,  a  butterfly's 
wing,  a  nest,  a  shell,  wraps  his  passion 
around  a  small  thing  that  always  contains  a 
great  truth.  To  succeed  in  modifying  the 
appearance  of  a  flower  is  insignificant  in 
itself,  if  you  will;  but  reflect  upon  it  for 
however  short  a  while,  and  it  becomes 
gigantic.  Do  we  not  violate,  or  deviate, 
profound,  perhaps  essential  and,  in  any 
case,  time-honoured  laws?  Do  we  not 
exceed  too  easily  accepted  limits?  Do  we 
not  directly  intrude  our  ephemeral  will  on 
that  of  the  eternal  forces?  Do  we  not  give 
the  idea  of  a  singular  power,  a  power 
almost  supernatural,  since  it  inverts  a 
natural  order  of  things?  And,  although 
it  is  prudent  to  guard  against  over-ambi- 
245 


The   Double    Garden 

tlous  dreams,  does  not  this  allow  us  to  hope 
that  we  may  perhaps  learn  to  elude  or  to 
transgress  other  laws  no  less  time-honoured, 
nearer  to  ourselves  and  important  in  a  very 
different  manner?  For,  in  short,  all  things 
touch,  all  things  go  hand  to  hand ;  all  things 
obey  the  same  invisible  principles,  the  identi- 
cal exigencies;  all  things  share  in  the  same 
spirit,  in  the  same  substance,  in  the  terrify- 
ing and  wonderful  problem;  and  the  most 
modest  victory  gained  in  the  matter  of  a 
flower  may  one  day  disclose  to  us  an  infinity 
of  the  untold.  .  .  . 


Because  of  these  things  I  love  the  chrys- 
anthemum; because  of  these  things  I  follow 
its  evolution  with  a  brother's  interest.  It  is, 
among  familiar  plants,  the  most  submissive, 
the  most  docile,  the  most  tractable  and  the 
most  attentive  plant  of  all  that  we  meet  on 
246 


Chrysanthemums 

life's  long  way.  It  bears  flowers  impreg- 
nated through  and  through  with  the 
thought  and  will  of  man:  flowers  already 
human,  so  to  speak.  And,  if  the  vegetable 
world  is  some  day  to  reveal  to  us  one  of  the 
words  that  we  are  awaiting,  perhaps  it  will 
be  through  this  flower  of  the  tombs  that  we 
shall  learn  the  first  secret  of  existence,  even 
as,  in  another  kingdom,  it  is  probably 
through  the  dog,  the  almost  thinking 
guardian  of  our  homes,  that  we  shall  dis- 
cover the  mystery  of  animal  life. 


247 


OLD-FASHIONED    FLOWERS 


OT.D   FASHIONED   FLOWERS 
I 

THIS  morning,  when  I  went  to  look  at 
my  flowers,  surrounded  by  their 
white  fence,  which  protects  them 
against  the  good  cattle  grazing  in  the  field 
beyond,  I  saw  again  in  my  mind  all  that 
blossoms  In  the  woods,  the  fields,  the  gar- 
dens, the  orangeries  and  the  green-houses 
and  I  thought  of  all  that  we  owe  to  the 
world  of  marvels  which  the  bees  visit. 

Can  we  conceive  what  humanity  would 
be  if  it  did  not  know  the  flowers?  If  these 
did  not  exist,  if  they  had  all  been  hidden 
from  our  gaze,  as  are  probably  a  thousand 
no  less  fairy  sights  that  are  all  around  us, 
but  invisible  to  our  eyes,  would  our  charac- 
ter, our  faculties,  our  sense  of  the  beautiful, 
251 


The    Double  Garden 

our  aptitude  for  happiness  be  quite  the 
same?  We  should,  it  is  true,  in  nature 
have  other  splendid  manifestations  of 
luxury,  exuberance  and  grace ;  other  dazzl- 
ing efforts  of  the  superfluous  forces:  the 
sun,  the  stars,  the  varied  lights  of  the  moon, 
the  azure  and  the  ocean,  the  dawns  and 
twilights,  the  mountain,  the  plain,  the 
forest  and  the  rivers,  the  light  and  the  trees 
and,  lastly,  nearer  to  us,  birds,  precious 
stones  and  woman.  These  are  the  orna- 
ments of  our  planet.  Yet,  but  for  the  last 
three,  which  belong  to  the  same  smile  of 
nature,  how  grave,  austere,  almost  sad 
would  be  the  education  of  our  eye,  without 
the  softness  which  the  flowers  give  I  Sup- 
pose for  a  moment  that  our  globe  knew 
them  not:  a  great  region,  the  most 
enchanted  in  the  joys  of  our  psychology, 
would  be  destroyed,  or  rather  would  not  be 
discovered.  All  of  a  delightful  sense  would 
sleep  for  ever  at  the  bottom  of  our  harder 
252 


Old-Fashioned    Flowers 

and  more  desert  hearts  and  in  our  imagina- 
tion stripped  of  worshipful  images.  The 
infinite  world  of  colours  and  shades  would 
have  been  but  incompletely  revealed  to  us 
by  a  few  rents  in  the  sky.  The  miraculous 
harmonies  of  light  at  play,  ceaselessly 
inventing  new  gaieties,  revelling  in  itself, 
would  be  unlcnown  to  us;  for  the  flowers 
first  broke  up  the  prism  and  made  the  most 
subtle  portion  of  our  sight.  And  the  magic 
garden  of  perfumes:  who  would  have 
opened  its  gate  to  us?  A  few  grasses,  a 
few  gums,  a  few  fruits,  the  breath  of  the 
dawn,  the  smell  of  the  night  and  the  sea 
would  have  told  us  that  beyond  our  eyes 
and  ears  there  existed  a  shut  paradise  where 
the  air  which  we  breathe  changes  into 
delights  for  which  we  could  have  found  no 
name.  Consider  also  all  that  the  voice  of 
human  happiness  would  lack!  One  of  the 
blessed  heights  of  our  soul  would  be  almost 

dumb,  if  the  flowers  had  not,  since  centuries, 
253 


The    Double    Garden 

fed  with  their  beauty  the  language  which 
we  speak  and  the  thoughts  that  endeavour 
to  crystallize  the  most  precious  hours  of 
life.  The  whole  vocabulary,  all  the  impres- 
sions of  love,  are  impregnate  with  their 
breath,  nourished  with  their  smile.  When 
we  love,  all  the  flowers  that  we  have  seen 
and  smelt  seem  to  hasten  within  us  to  people 
with  their  known  charms  the  consciousness 
of  a  sentiment  whose  happiness,  but  for 
them,  would  have  no  more  form  than  the 
horizons  of  the  sea  or  sky.  They  have 
accumulated  within  us,  since  our  childhood, 
and  even  before  it,  in  the  soul  of  our 
fathers,  an  immense  treasure,  the  nearest  to 
our  joys,  upon  which  we  draw  each  time 
that  we  wish  to  make  more  real  the  clement 
minutes  of  our  life.  They  have  created 
and  spread  in  our  world  of  sentiment  the 
fragrant  atmosphere  in  which  love  delights. 


m 


Old-Fashioned    Flowers 
II 

That  is  why  I  love  above  all  the  simplest, 
the  commonest,  the  oldest  and  the  most 
antiquated ;  those  which  have  a  long  human 
past  behind  them,  a  large  array  of  kind 
and  consoling  actions;  those  which  have 
lived  with  us  for  hundreds  of  years  and 
which  form  part  of  ourselves,  since  they 
reflect  something  of  their  grace  and  their 
joy  of  life  in  the  soul  of  our  ancestors. 

But  where  do  they  hide  themselves? 
They  are  becoming  rarer  than  those  which 
we  call  rare  flowers  to-day.  Their  life  is 
secret  and  precarious.  It  seems  as  though 
we  were  on  the  point  of  losing  them,  and 
perhaps  there  are  some  which,  discouraged 
at  last,  have  lately  disappeared,  of  which 
the  seeds  have  died  under  the  ruins,  which 
will  no  more  know  the  dew  of  the  gardens 
and  which  we  shall  find  only  in  very  old 
books,  amid  the  bright  grass  of  the  Illumi- 
255 


The   Double    Garden 

nators  or  along  the  yellow  flower-beds  of 
the  Primitives. 

They  are  driven  from  the  borders  and 
the  proud  baskets  by  arrogant  strangers 
from  Peru,  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  China, 
Japan.  They  have  two  pitiless  enemies  in 
particular.  The  first  of  these  is  the  encum- 
bering and  prolific  Begonia  Tuberosa,  that 
swarms  in  the  beds  like  a  tribe  of  turbulent 
fighting-cocks,  with  innumerous  combs.  It 
is  pretty,  but  insolent  and  a  little  artificial; 
and,  whatever  the  silence  and  meditation  of 
the  hour,  under  the  sun  and  under  the  moon, 
in  the  intoxication  of  the  day  and  the 
solemn  peace  of  the  night,  it  sounds  its 
clarion  cry  and  celebrates  its  victory,  mono- 
tonous, shrill  and  scentless.  The  other  is  the 
Double  Geranium,  not  quite  so  indiscreet, 
but  indefatigable  also  and  extraordinarily 
courageous.  It  would  appear  desirable 
were  it  less  lavished.  These  two,  with  the 
help  of  a  few  more  cunning  strangers  and 
256 


Old-Fashioned    Flowers 

of  the  plants  with  coloured  leaves  that  close 
up  those  turgid  mosaics  which  at  present 
debase  the  beautiful  lines  of  most  of  our 
lawns,  these  two  have  gradually  ousted 
their  native  sisters  from  the  spots  which 
these  had  so  long  brightened  with  their 
familiar  smiles.  They  no  longer  have  the 
right  to  receive  the  guest  with  artless  little 
cries  of  welcome  at  the  gilded  gates  of  the 
mansion.  They  are  forbidden  to  prattle 
near  the  steps,  to  twitter  in  the  marble  vases, 
to  hum  their  tune  beside  the  lakes,  to  lisp 
their  dialect  along  the  borders.  A  few  of 
them  have  been  relegated  to  the  kitchen- 
garden,  in  the  neglected  and,  for  that  mat- 
ter, delightful  corner  occupied  by  the  me- 
dicinal or  merely  aromatic  plants,  the  Sage, 
the  Tarragon,  the  Fennel  and  the  Thyme, 
old  servants,  too,  dismissed  and  nourished 
through  a  sort  of  pity  or  mechanical  tradi- 
tion. Others  have  taken  refuge  by  the 
stables,  near  the  low  door  of  the  kitchen  or 
257 


The    Double   Garden 

the  cellar,  where  they  crowd  humbly  like 
importunate  beggars,  hiding  their  bright 
dresses  among  the  weeds  and  holding  their 
frightened  perfumes  as  best  they  may,  so  as 
not  to  attract  attention. 

But,  even  there,  the  Pelargonium,  red 
with  indignation,  and  the  Begonia,  crimson 
with  rage,  came  to  surprise  and  hustle  the 
unoffending  little  band ;  and  they  fled  to  the 
farms,  the  cemeteries,  the  little  gardens  of 
the  rectories,  the  old  maid's  houses  and  the 
country  convents.  And  now  hardly  any- 
where, save  in  the  oblivion  of  the  oldest 
villages,  around  tottering  dwellings,  far 
from  the  railways  and  the  nursery-gar- 
dener's overbearing  hot-houses,  do  we  find 
them  again  with  their  natural  smile :  not 
wearing  a  driven,  panting  and  hunted  look, 
but  peaceful,  calm,  restful,  plentiful,  care- 
less and  at  home.  And,  even  as  in  former 
times,  in  the  coaching-days,  from  the  top  of 
the  stone  wall  that  surrounds  the  bouse, 
258 


Old-Fashioned    Flowers 

through  the  rails  of  the  white  fence,  or 
from  the  sill  of  the  windows  enlivened  by  a 
caged  bird,  on  the  motionless  road  where 
none  passes,  save  the  eternal  forces  of  life, 
they  see  spring  come  and  autumn,  the  rain 
and  the  sun,  the  butterflies  and  the  bees,  the 
silence  and  the  night  followed  by  the  light 
of  the  moon. 


Ill 

Brave  old  flowers  I  Wall-flowers,  Gilly- 
flowers, Stocks!  For,  even  as  the  field- 
flowers,  from  which  a  trifle,  a  ray  of  beauty, 
a  drop  of  perfume,  divides  them,  they  have 
charming  names,  the  softest  in  the  lan- 
guage; and  each  of  them,  like  tiny,  artless 
ex-votos,  or  like  medals  bestowed  by  the 
gratitude  of  men,  proudly  bears  three  or 
four.  You  Stocks,  who  sing  among  the 
ruined  walls  and  cover  with  light  the  griev- 
ing stones,  you  Garden  Primroses,  Primulas 
259 


The    Double  Garden 

or  Cowslips,  Hyacinths,  Crocuses,  Crown 
Imperials,  Scented  Violets,  Lilies  of  the 
Valley,  Forget-me-nots,  Daisies  and  Peri- 
winkles, Poet's  Narcissuses,  Pheasant's 
Eyes,  Bear's  Ears,  Alyssums,  Saxifrage, 
Anemones:  it  is  through  you  that  the 
months  that  come  before  the  leaf-time — 
February,  March,  April — translate  into 
smiles  which  men  can  understand  the  first 
news  and  the  first  mysterious  kisses  of  the 
sunl  You  are  frail  and  chilly  and  yet  as 
bold-faced  as  a  bright  idea.  You  make 
young  the  grass;  you  are  fresh  as  the  water 
that  flows  in  the  azure  cups  which  the  dawn 
distributes  over  the  greedy  buds,  ephemeral 
as  the  dreams  of  a  child,  almost  wide  still 
and  almost  spontaneous,  yet  already 
marked  by  the  too-precocious  brilliancy,  the 
too-flaming  nimbus,  the  too-pensive  grace 
that  overwhelm  the  flowers  which  yield 
obedience  to  man. 


a6o 


Old-Fashioned    Flowers 

IV 

But  here,  innumerous,  disordered,  many- 
coloured,  tumultuous,  drunk  with  dawns 
and  noons,  come  the  luminous  dances  of 
the  daughters  of  Summer!  Little  girls 
with  white  veils  and  old  maids  in  violet 
ribbons,  school-girls  home  for  the  holidays, 
first-communicants,  pale  nuns,  dishevelled 
romps,  gossips  and  prudes.  Here  is  the 
Marigold,  who  breaks  up  with  her  bright- 
ness the  green  of  the  borders.  Here  is  the 
Camomile,  like  a  nosegay  of  snow,  beside 
her  unwearying  brothers,  the  Garden 
Chrysanthemums,  whom  we  must  not  con- 
fuse with  the  Japanese  Chrysanthemums  of 
autumn.  The  Annual  Helianthus,  or  Sun- 
flower, towers  like  a  priest  raising  the 
monstrance  over  the  lesser  folk  in  prayer 
and  strives  to  resemble  the  luminary  which 
he  adores.  The  Poppy  exerts  himself  to 
fill  with  light  his  cup  torn  by  the  morning 
261 


The  Double    Garden 

wind.  The  rough  Larkspur,  in  his  peas- 
ant's blouse,  who  thinks  himself  more 
beautiful  than  the  sky,  looks  down  upon  the 
Dwarf  Convolvuluses,  who  reproach  him 
spitefully  with  putting  too  much  blue  into 
the  azure  of  his  flowers.  The  Virginia 
Stock,  arch  and  demure  in  her  gown  of 
jaconet,  like  the  little  servant-maids  of 
Dordrecht  or  Leyden,  washes  the  borders 
of  the  beds  with  innocence.  The  Mignon- 
ette hides  herself  in  her  laboratory  and 
silently  distils  perfumes  that  give  us  a  fore- 
taste of  the  air  which  we  breathe  on  the 
threshold  of  Paradise.  The  Peonies,  who 
have  drunk  their  imprudent  fill  of  the  sun, 
burst  with  enthusiasm  and  bend  forward  to 
meet  the  coming  apoplexy.  The  Scarlet 
Flax  traces  a  blood-stained  furrow  that 
guards  the  walks ;  and  the  Portulaca,  creep- 
ing like  a  moss,  studies  to  cover  with  mauve, 
amber  or  pink  taffeta  the  soil  that  has 
remained  bare  at  the  foot  of  the  tall  stalks. 
262 


Old-Fashioned    Flowers 

The  chub-faced  Dahlia,  a  little  round,  a 
little  stupid,  carves  out  of  soap,  lard  or  wax 
his  regular  pompons,  which  will  be  the 
ornament  of  a  village  holiday.  The  old, 
paternal  Phlox,  standing  amid  the  clusters, 
lavishes  the  loud  laughter  of  his  jolly,  easy- 
going colours.  The  Mallows,  or  Lavateras, 
like  demure  misses,  feel  the  tenderest 
blushes  of  fugitive  modesty  mount  to  their 
corollas  at  the  slightest  breath.  The  Nas- 
turtium paints  his  water  colours,  or  screams 
like  a  parakeet  climbing  up  the  bars  of  its 
cage ;  and  the  Rose-mallow,  Althaea  Rosea, 
Hollyhock,  riding  the  high  horse  of  her 
many  names,  flaunts  her  cockades  of  a  flesh 
silkier  than  a  maiden's  breast.  The  Snap- 
dragon and  the  almost  transparent  Balsam 
are  more  timorous  and  awkward  and  fear- 
fully press  their  flowers  against  their  stalks. 
Next,  in  the  discreet  corner  of  the  old 
families,  are  crowded  the  long-leaved 
Veronica ;  the  red  PotentlUa ;  the  African 
263 


The  Double    Garden 

Marigold;  the  ancient  Lychnis,  or  Maltese 
Cross;  the  Mournful  Widow,  or  Purple 
Scabious;  the  Foxglove,  or  Digitalis,  who 
shoots  up  like  a  melancholy  rocket;  the 
European  Aquilegia,  or  Columbine;  the 
Viscaria,  who,  on  a  long,  slim  neck,  lifts 
a  small,  ingenuous,  quite  round  face  to 
admire  the  sky;  the  lurking  Lunaria,  who 
secretly  manufactures  the  "Pope's  money," 
those  pale,  flat  crown-pieces  with  which,  no 
doubt,  the  elves  and  fairies  by  moonlight 
carry  on  their  trade  in  spells;  lastly,  the 
Pheasant's  Eye,  the  red  Valerian,  or  Jupi- 
ter's Beard,  the  Sweet  William  and  the  old 
Carnation,  that  was  cultivated  long  ago  by 
the  Grand  Conde  in  his  exile. 

Besides  these,  above,  all  around,  on  the 
walls,  in  the  hedges,  among  the  arbours, 
along  the  branches,  like  a  people  of  sportive 
monkeys  and  birds,  the  climbing  plants 
make  merry,  perform  feats  of  gymnastics, 
play  at  swinging,  at  losing  and  recovering 
264 


Old-Fashioned    Flowers 

their  balance,  at  falling,  at  flying,  at  looking 
up  at  space,  at  reaching  beyond  the  tree- 
tops  to  kiss  the  sky.  Here  we  have  the 
Spanish  Bean  and  the  Sweet  Pea,  quite 
proud  at  being  no  longer  included  among 
the  vegetables;  the  modest  Volubilis;  the 
Honeysuckle,  whose  scent  represents  the 
soul  of  the  dew;  the  Clematis  and  the 
Glycine ;  while,  at  the  windows,  between  the 
white  curtains,  along  the  stretched  string, 
the  Campanula,  surnamed  Pyramidalis, 
works  such  miracles,  throws  out  sheaves  and 
twists  garlands  formed  of  a  thousand 
uniform  flowers  so  prodigiously  immacu- 
late and  transparent  that  they  who  see  it  for 
the  first  time,  refusing  to  believe  their  eyes, 
want  to  touch  with  their  finger  the  bluey 
marvel,  cool  as  a  fountain,  pure  as  a  source, 
unreal  as  a  dream. 

Meanwhile,  in  a  blaze  of  light,  the  great 
white  Lily,   the   old  lord  of  the   gardens, 
the  only   authentic  prince   among  all   the 
26s 


The  Double    Garden 

commonalty  issuing  from  the  kitchen- 
garden,  the  ditches,  the  copses,  the  pools 
and  the  moors,  among  the  strangers  come 
from  none  knows  where,  with  his  invariable 
six-petalled  chalice  of  silver,  whose  nobility 
dates  back  to  that  of  the  gods  themselves: 
the  immemorial  Lily  raises  his  ancient 
sceptre,  august,  inviolate,  which  creates 
around  it  a  zone  of  chastity,  silence  and 
light. 


I  have  seen  them,  those  whom  I  have 
named  and  as  many  whom  I  have  forgotten, 
all  thus  collected  in  the  garden  of  an  old 
sage,  the  same  that  taught  me  to  love  the 
bees.  They  displayed  themselves  in  beds 
and  clusters,  in  symmetrical  borders, 
ellipses,  oblongs,  quincunxes  and  lozenges, 
surrounded  by  box  hedges,  red  bricks, 
earthenware  tiles  or  brass  chains,  like 
266 


Old-Fashioned    Flowers 

precious  matters  contained  in  ordered  recep- 
tacles similar  to  those  which  we  find  in  the 
discoloured  engravings  that  illustrate  the 
works  of  the  old  Dutch  poet,  Jacob  Cats. 
And  the  flowers  were  drawn  up  in  rows, 
some  according  to  their  kinds,  others 
according  to  their  shapes  and  shades,  while 
others,  lastly,  mingled,  according  to  the 
happy  chances  of  the  wind  and  the  sun,  the 
most  hostile  and  murderous  colours,  in 
order  to  show  that  nature  acknowledges  no 
dissonance  and  that  all  that  lives  creates  its 
own  harmony. 

From  its  twelve  rounded  windows,  with 
their  shining  panes,  their  muslin  curtains, 
their  broad  green  shutters,  the  long,  painted 
house,  pink  and  gleaming  as  a  shell, 
watched  them  wake  at  dawn  and  throw  off 
the  brisk  diamonds  of  the  dew  and  then 
close  at  night  under  the  blue  darkness  that 
falls  from  the  stars.  One  felt  that  it  took 
an  intelligent  pleasure  in  this  gentle,  daily 
267 


The  Double    Garden 

fairy-scene,  itself  solidly  planted  between 
two  clear  ditches  that  lost  themselves  in  the 
distance  of  the  immense  pasturage  dotted 
with  motionless  cows,  while,  by  the  road- 
side, a  proud  mill,  bending  forward  like  a 
preacher,  made  familiar  signs  with  its 
paternal  sails  to  the  passers-by  from  the 
village. 


VI 


Has  this  earth  of  ours  a  fairer  orna- 
ment of  its  hours  of  leisure  than  the  care 
of  flowers?  It  was  beautiful  to  see  thus 
collected  for  the  pleasure  of  the  eyes, 
around  the  house  of  my  placid  friend,  the 
splendid  throng  that  tills  the  light  to  win 
from  it  marvellous  colours,  honey  and  per- 
fumes. He  found  there  translated  into 
visible  joys,  fixed  at  the  gates  of  his  house, 
the  scattered,  fleeting  and  almost  intangible 
delights  of  summer:  the  voluptuous  air, 
a68 


Old-Fashioned    Flowers 

the  clement  nights,  the  emotional  sunbeams, 
the  glad  hours,  the  confiding  dawn,  the 
whispering  and  mysterious  azured  space. 
He  enjoyed  not  only  their  dazzling  pres- 
ence :  he  also  hoped — probably  unwisely,  so 
deep  and  confused  Is  that  mystery — he  also 
hoped,  by  dint  of  questioning  them,  to  sur- 
prise, with  their  aid,  I  know  not  what 
secret  law  or  Idea  of  nature,  I  know  not 
what  private  thought  of  the  universe,  which 
perhaps  betrays  Itself  In  those  ardent 
moments  In  which  it  strives  to  please  other 
beings,  to  beguile  other  lives  and  to  create 
beauty. 

VII 

Old  flowers,  I  said.  I  was  wrong;  for 
they  are  not  so  old.  When  we  study  their 
history  and  investigate  their  pedigrees,  we 
learn  with  surprise  that  most  of  them,  down 
to  the  simplest  and  commonest,  are  new 
269 


The  Double    Garden 

beings,  freedmen,  exiles,  new-comers, 
visitors,  foreigners.  Any  botanical  treatise 
will  reveal  their  origins.  The  Tulip,  for 
instance  (remember  La  Bruyere's  "Soli- 
tary," "Oriental,"  "Agate,"  and  "Cloth  of 
Gold"),  came  from  Constantinople  in  the 
sixteenth  century.  The  Ranuncula,  the 
Lunaria,  the  Maltese  Cross,  the  Balsam, 
the  Fuchsia,  the  African  Marigold,  or 
Tagetes  Erecta,  the  Rose  Campion,  or 
Lychnis  Coronaria,  the  two-coloured 
Aconite,  the  Amaranthus  Caudatus,  or 
Love-lies-bleeding,  the  Hollyhock  and  the 
Campanula  Pyramidalis  arrived  at  about 
the  same  time  from  the  Indies,  Mexico, 
Persia,  Syria  and  Italy.  The  Pansy  appears 
in  1 6 13;  the  Yellow  Alyssum  in  17 10;  the 
Perennial  Flax  in  1775 ;  the  Scarlet  Flax  in 
1 8 19;  the  Purple  Scabious  in  1629;  the 
Saxifraga  Sarmentosa  in  1771;  the  long- 
leaved  Veronica  in  17 13;  the  Perennial 
Phlox  is  a  little  older.  The  Indian  Pink 
270 


Old- Fashioned    Flowers 

made  its  entrance  into  our  gardens  about 
1 7 13.  The  Garden  Pink  is  of  modern  date. 
The  Portulaca  did  not  make  her  appearance 
till  1828;  the  Scarlet  Sage  till  1822.  The 
Ageratum,  or  Coelestinum,  now  so  plentiful 
and  so  popular,  is  not  two  centuries  old. 
The  Helichrysum,  or  Everlasting,  is  even 
younger.  The  Zinnia  is  exactly  a  cen- 
tenarian. The  Spanish  Bean,  a  native  of 
South  America,  and  the  Sweet  Pea,  an 
immigrant  from  Sicily,  number  a  little  over 
two  hundred  years.  The  Anthemis,  whom 
we  find  in  the  least-known  villages,  has  been 
cultivated  only  since  1699.  The  charming 
blue  Lobelia  of  our  borders  came  to  us 
from  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  at  the  time 
of  the  French  Revolution.  The  China 
Aster,  or  Reine  Marguerite,  is  dated  1731. 
The  Annual  or  Drummond's  Phlox,  now  so 
common,  was  sent  over  from  Texas  in  1835. 
The  large-flowered  Lavatera,  who  looks  so 
confirmed  a  native,  so  simple  a  rustic,  has 
271 


The   Double    Garden 

blossomed  in  our  gardens  only  since  two 
centuries  and  a  half;  and  the  Petunia  since 
some  twenty  lustres.  The  Mignonette,  the 
Heliotrope — who  would  believe  it? — are 
not  two  hundred  years  old.  The  Dahlia 
was  born  in  1 802 ;  and  the  Gladiolus  is  of 
yesterday. 

VIII 

What  flowers,  then,  blossomed  in  the 
gardens  of  our  fathers?  Very  few,  no 
doubt,  and  very  small  and  very  humble, 
scarce  to  be  distinguished  from  those  of  the 
roads,  the  fields  and  the  glades.  Before  the 
sixteenth  century,  those  gardens  were 
almost  bare ;  and,  later,  Versailles  itself,  the 
splendid  Versailles,  could  have  shown  us 
only  what  is  shown  to-day  by  the  poorest 
village.  Alone,  the  Violet,  the  Garden 
Daisy,  the  Lily  of  the  Valley,  the  Mari- 
gold, the  Poppy,  a  few  Crocuses,  a  few 
273 


Old-Fashioned    Flowers 

Irises,  a  few  Colchicums,  the  Foxglove,  the 
Valerian,  the  Larkspur,  the  Cornflower,  the 
Clove,  the  Forget-me-not,  the  Gilly-flower, 
the  Mallow,  the  Rose,  still  almost  a  Sweet- 
briar,  and  the  great  silver  Lily,  the  sponta- 
neous finery  of  our  woods  and  of  our  snow- 
frightened,  wind-frightened  fields:  these 
alone  smiled  upon  our  forefathers,  who, 
for  that  matter,  were  unaware  of  their 
poverty.  Man  had  not  yet  learnt  to  look 
around  him,  to  enjoy  the  life  of  nature. 
Then  came  the  Renascence,  the  great 
voyages,  the  discovery  and  invasion  of  the 
sunlight.  All  the  flowers  of  the  world,  the 
successful  efforts,  the  deep,  inmost  beauties, 
the  joyful  thoughts  and  wishes  of  the 
planet  rose  up  to  us,  borne  on  a  shaft  of 
light  that,  in  spite  of  its  heavenly  wonder, 
issued  from  our  own  earth.  Man  ventured 
forth  from  the  cloister,  the  crypt,  the  town 
of  brick  and  stone,  the  gloomy  stronghold 
in  which  he  had  slept.  He  went  down  into 
373 


The   Double    Garden 

the  garden,  which  became  peopled  with 
azure,  purple  and  perfumes,  opened  his 
eyes,  astounded  like  a  child  escaping  from 
the  dreams  of  the  night;  and  the  forest,  the 
plain,  the  sea  and  the  mountains  and,  lastly, 
the  birds  and  the  flowers,  that  speak  in  the 
name  of  all  a  more  human  language  which 
he  already  understood,  greeted  his  awak- 
ening. 

IX 

Nowadays,  perhaps,  there  are  no  more 
unknown  flowers.  We  have  found  all  or 
nearly  all  the  forms  which  nature  lends  to 
the  great  dream  of  love,  to  the  yearning  for 
beauty  that  stirs  within  her  bosom.  We 
live,  so  to  speak,  in  the  midst  of  her  ten- 
derest  confidences,  of  her  most  touching 
inventions.  We  take  an  unhoped-for  part 
in  the  most  mysterious  festivals  of  the 
invisible  force  that  animates  us  also.  Doubt- 
less, in  appearance,  it  is  a  small  thing  that 
274 


Old-Fashioned    Flowers 

a  few  more  flowers  should  adorn  our  beds. 
They  only  scatter  a  few  impotent  smiles 
along  the  paths  that  lead  to  the  grave.  It 
is  none  the  less  true  that  these  are  new  and 
very  real  smiles,  which  were  unknown  to 
those  who  came  before  us;  and  this  recently- 
discovered  happiness  spreads  in  every  direc- 
tion, even  to  the  doors  of  the  most  wretched 
hovels.  The  good,  the  simple  flowers  are 
as  happy  and  as  gorgeous  in  the  poor  man's 
strip  of  garden  as  in  the  broad  lawns  of 
the  great  house,  and  they  surround  the 
cottage  with  the  supreme  beauty  of  the 
earth;  for  the  earth  has  till  now  produced 
nothing  more  beautiful  than  the  flowers. 
They  have  completed  the  conquest  of  the 
globe.  Foreseeing  the  days  when  men  shall 
at  last  have  long  and  equal  leisure,  already 
they  promise  an  equality  in  sane  enjoy- 
ments. Yes,  assuredly  it  is  a  small  thing; 
and  everything  is  a  small  thing,  if  we  look 
at  each  of  our  little  victories  one  by  one. 
275 


The  Double    Garden 

It  is  a  small  thing,  too,  in  appearance,  that 
we  should  have  a  few  more  thoughts  in  our 
heads,  a  new  feeling  at  our  hearts ;  and  yet 
it  is  just  that  which  slowly  leads  us  where 
we  hope  to  win. 

After  all,  we  have  here  a  very  real  fact, 
namely,  that  we  live  in  a  world  in  which 
flowers  are  more  beautiful  and  more  numer- 
ous than  formerly;  and  perhaps  we  have 
the  right  to  add  that  the  thoughts  of  men 
are  more  just  and  greedier  of  truth.  The 
smallest  joy  gained  and  the  smallest  grief 
conquered  should  be  marked  in  the  Book 
of  Humanity.  It  behoves  us  not  to  lose 
sight  of  any  of  the  evidence  that  we  are 
mastering  the  nameless  powers,  that  we  are 
beginning  to  handle  some  of  the  mysterious 
laws  that  govern  the  created,  that  we  are 
making  our  planet  all  our  own,  that  we  are 
adorning  our  stay  and  gradually  broaden- 
ing the  acreage  of  happiness  and  of  beauti- 
ful life. 

nj6 


SINCERITY 


SINCERITY 
I 

LOVE  contains  no  complete  and  lasting 
happiness  save  in  the  transparent 
atmosphere  of  perfect  sincerity. 
Until  we  attain  this  sincerity,  our  love  is  but 
an  experiment:  we  live  in  expectation,  and 
our  words  and  kisses  are  only  provisional. 
But  sincerity  is  not  possible  except  between 
lofty  and  trained  consciences.  Moreover, 
it  is  not  enough  that  the  consciences  should 
be  that:  if  sincerity  is  to  become  natural 
and  essential,  this  is  requisite  besides,  that 
the  consciences  shall  be  almost  equal,  of  the 
same  extent,  of  the  same  quality,  and  that 
the  love  that  unites  them  shall  be  deep- 
laid.  And  thus  it  is  that  the  lives  glide 
away  of  so  many  men  who  never  meet  the 
279 


The  Double    Garden 

80ul  with  which  they  could  have  been 
sincere. 

But  it  is  impossible  to  be  sincere  with 
others  before  learning  to  be  sincere  with 
one's  self.  Sincerity  is  only  the  conscious- 
ness and  analysis  of  the  motives  of  all  life's 
actions.  It  is  the  expression  of  this 
consciousness  that  one  is  able,  later  to 
lay  before  the  eyes  of  the  being  with 
whom  one  is  seeking  the  happiness  of 
sincerity. 

Thus  understood,  sincerity's  aim  is  not  to 
lead  to  moral  perfection.  It  leads  else- 
where, higher  if  we  will:  in  any  case  to 
more  human  and  more  fertile  regions.  The 
perfection  of  a  character,  as  we  generally 
understand  it,  is  too  often  but  an  unproduc- 
tive abstention,  a  sort  of  ataraxy,  an  abate- 
ment of  instinctive  life  which  is,  when  all 
is  said,  the  one  source  of  all  the  other  lives 
that  we  succeed  in  organizing  within  us. 
This  perfection  tends  to  suppress  our  too 


Sincerity 

ardent  desires:  ambition,  pride,  vanity, 
egoism,  the  craving  for  enjoyment,  In  short, 
all  the  human  passions,  that  is  to  say,  all 
that  constitutes  our  primitive  vital  force,  the 
very  groundwork  of  our  energy  of  existence, 
which  nothing  can  replace.  If  we  stifle 
within  ourselves  all  the  manifestations  of 
life,  to  substitute  for  them  merely  the  con- 
templation of  their  defeat,  soon  we  shall 
have  nothing  left  to  contemplate. 

Wherefore,  it  is  not  of  importance  to 
have  no  more  passions,  vices  or  faults :  that 
is  impossible,  so  long  as  one  is  a  man  in  the 
midst  of  men,  since  we  make  the  mistake 
to  describe  as  passion,  vice  or  fault  that 
which  is  the  very  basis  of  human  nature. 
But  it  is  of  importance  to  recognize,  in  their 
details  and  in  their  secrets,  those  which 
we  possess  and  to  watch  them  at  work  from 
a  standpoint  so  high  that  we  may  look 
upon  them  without  fearing  lest  they  should 
overthrow  us  or  escape  from  our  control  to 
281 


The  Double    Garden 

go   and   heedlessly  to   harm   us   or   those 
around  us. 

So  soon  as,  from  that  stand-point,  we  see 
our  instincts,  even  the  lowest  and  the  most 
selfish,  at  work,  provided  that  we  are  not 
wilfully  wicked — and  it  is  difficult  to  be 
that  when  our  intelligence  has  acquired  the 
lucidity  and  the  force  which  this  faculty  of 
observation  implies — so  soon  as  we  see 
them  thus  at  work,  they  become  harmless, 
like  children  under  their  parents'  eyes.  We 
can  even  lose  sight  of  them,  forget  to 
watch  them  for  a  time ;  they  will  commit  no 
serious  misdeeds;  for  the  obligation  that 
lies  upon  them  to  repair  the  evil  which  they 
have  done  renders  them  naturally  circum- 
spect and  soon  makes  them  lose  the  habit 
of  doing  harm. 

II 

When  we  have  achieved  a  sufficient  sin- 
cerity with  ourselves,   it  does  not  follow 

2fi2 


Sincerity 

that  we  must  deliver  it  to  the  first-comer. 
The  frankest  and  most  loyal  man  has 
the  right  to  hide  from  others  the  greater 
part  of  what  he  thinks  or  feels.  If  it  be 
uncertain  whether  the  truth  which  you 
propose  to  speak  will  be  understood,  do 
not  utter  it.  It  would  appear  in  others 
quite  different  from  that  which  it  is  in  you; 
and,  taking  in  them  the  appearance  of  a  lie, 
it  would  do  the  same  harm  as  a  real  lie. 
Whatever  the  absolute  moralists  may  say, 
so  soon  as  one  is  no  longer  among  equal 
consciences,  every  truth,  to  produce  the 
effect  of  truth,  requires  focussing;  and 
Jesus  Christ  Himself  was  obliged  to  focus 
the  greater  part  of  those  which  He  revealed 
to  His  disciples,  for,  had  He  been 
addressing  Plato  or  Seneca  instead  of 
speaking  to  fishers  of  Galilee,  He  would 
probably  have  said  to  them  things  different 
from  those  which  He  did  say. 

It  is,  therefore,   right  that  we  should 
283 


The    Double   Garden 

present  to  each  man  only  the  truth  for 
which  he  has  room  in  the  hut  or  the  palace 
which  he  has  built  to  admit  the  truths  of  his 
life.  But  let  us,  nevertheless,  give  ten  or 
twenty  times  as  many  truths  as  we  are 
offered  in  exchange;  for  in  this,  as  in  all 
circumstances,  it  behoves  the  more  con- 
scient  to  take  the  lead. 

The  reign  of  instinct  begins  only  when 
this  focussing  is  no  longer  necessary.  We 
then  enter  the  privileged  region  of  confi- 
dence and  love,  which  is  like  a  delightful 
shore  where  we  meet  in  our  nakedness  and 
bathe  together  under  the  rays  of  a  kindly 
sun.  Until  this  hour,  man  had  lived  on  his 
guard,  like  a  culprit.  He  did  not  yet  know 
that  every  man  has  the  right  to  be  what  he 
is;  that  there  is  no  shame  in  his  mind  or  in 
his  heart,  any  more  than  in  his  body.  He 
soon  learns,  with  the  feeling  of  relief  of  an 
acquitted  prisoner,  that  that  which  he 
thought  it  his  duty  to  conceal  is  just  the 
a84 


Sincerity 

most  radical  portion  of  the  force  of  life. 
He  is  no  longer  alone  in  the  mystery  of  his 
conscience;  and  the  most  pitiful  secrets 
which  he  discovers  there,  far  from  sadden- 
ing him  as  of  yore,  cause  him  to  love  better 
the  firm  and  gentle  light  which  two  united 
hands  turn  upon  it  in  concert. 

All  the  evil,  all  the  meannesses,  all  the 
weaknesses  which  we  thus  disclose  in  our- 
selves change  their  nature  so  soon  as  they 
are  disclosed;  "and  the  greatest  fault,"  as 
the  heroine  of  a  recent  drama  says,  "when 
confessed  in  a  loyal  kiss,  becomes  a  truth 
more  beautiful  than  innocence."  More 
beautiful?  I  do  not  know;  but  younger, 
more  vivid,  more  visible,  more  active  and 
more  loving. 

In  this  state,  the  idea  no  longer  comes  to 
us  to  hide  a  secret  thought  or  a  secret  sen- 
timent, however  vulgar  or  contemptible. 
They  can  no  longer  make  us  blush,  seeing 
that,  in  owning  them,  we  disown  them,  we 
285 


The    Double  Garden 

separate  them  from  ourselves,  we  prove  that 
they  no  longer  belong  to  us,  no  longer  take 
part  in  our  lives,  no  longer  spring  from  the 
active,  voluntary  and  personal  side  of  our 
strength,  but  from  the  primitive,  formless 
and  enslaved  being  that  affords  us  an  enter- 
tainment as  amusing  as  are  all  those  in 
which  we  detect  the  play  of  the  instinctive 
powers  of  nature.  A  movement  of  hatred, 
of  selfishness,  of  silly  vanity,  of  envy  or  dis- 
loyalty, when  examined  in  the  light  of  per- 
fect sincerity,  becomes  nothing  more  than 
an  interesting  and  singular  flower.  This 
sincerity,  like  fire,  purifies  all  that  it 
embraces.  It  sterilizes  the  dangerous  leaven 
and  turns  the  greatest  injustice  into  an 
object  of  curiosity  as  harmless  as  a  deadly 
poison  in  the  glass  case  of  a  museum. 
Imagine  Shylock  capable  of  knowing  and 
confessing  his  greed:  he  would  cease  to  be 
greedy,  and  his  greed  would  change  its 
thape  and  no  longer  be  odious  and  hurtful. 
a86 


Sincerity 

For  the  rest,  it  is  not  indispensable  that 
we  should  correct  our  acknowledged  faults ; 
for  there  are  faults  that  are,  so  to  speak, 
necessary  to  our  existence  and  our  character. 
Many  of  our  defects  are  the  very  roots  of 
our  good  qualities.  But  the  knowledge  and 
admission  of  these  faults  and  defects 
chemically  precipitates  their  venom,  which 
becomes  no  more  than  a  salt,  lying  Inactive 
at  the  bottom  of  the  heart,  whose  innocent 
crystals  we  can  study  at  leisure. 

Ill 

The  purifying  force  of  the  avowal 
depends  upon  the  quality  of  the  soul  that 
makes  it  and  of  the  soul  that  receives  It. 
Once  that  the  balance  is  established, 
avowals  raise  the  level  of  happiness  and 
love.  So  soon  as  they  are  confessed,  old 
lies  or  new,  the  most  serious  weaknesses 

change  into  unexpected  ornaments  and,  like 

287 


The  Double    Garden 

beautiful  statues  in  a  park,  become  the  smil- 
ing witnesses  and  placid  demonstrations  of 
the  clearness  of  the  day. 

We  all  desire  to  attain  that  blissful  sin- 
cerity; but  we  are  long  fearful  lest  those 
who  love  us  should  love  us  less  if  we 
revealed  to  them  that  which  we  scarcely 
dare  reveal  to  ourselves.  It  seems  to  us  as 
though  certain  avowals  would  disfigure  for 
ever  the  image  which  they  have  formed  of 
us.  If  it  were  true  that  the  avowals  would 
disfigure  it,  that  would  be  a  proof  that  we 
are  not  loved  on  the  same  scale  as  that  on 
which  we  love.  If  he  who  receives  the 
avowal  cannot  rise  to  the  height  of  loving 
us  the  more  for  that  avowal,  there  is  a 
misunderstanding  in  our  love.  It  is  not  he 
who  makes  the  avowal  that  should  blush, 
but  he  who  does  not  yet  understand  that  we 
have  overcome  a  wrong  by  the  very  act  of 
confessing  it.  It  is  not  we  but  a  stranger 
who  now  stands  in  the  place  where  wc 
288 


Sincerity 

committed  a  fault.  The  fault  itself  we 
have  eliminated  from  our  being.  It  no 
longer  sullies  any  save  him  who  hesitates  to 
admit  that  it  sullies  us  no  longer.  It  has 
nothing  more  in  common  with  our  real  life. 
We  are  no  longer  anything  but  the  acci- 
dental witness  of  it  and  no  more  responsible 
for  it  than  a  good  soil  is  responsible  for  an 
ill  weed  or  a  mirror  for  an  ugly  reflection 
that  passes  across  it. 

IV 

Let  us  not  fear  any  the  more  that  this 
absolute  sincerity,  this  double  transparent 
life  of  two  beings  who  love  each  other,  will 
destroy  the  background  of  shadow  and 
mystery  that  must  exist  at  the  bottom  of  any 
lasting  affection,  nor  that  it  will  dry  up  the 
great  unknown  lake  which,  at  the  summit 
of  every  love,  feeds  the  desire  for  mutual 
knowledge,  the  desire  which  itself  is  merely 
289 


The  Double    Garden 

the  most  passionate  form  of  the  desire  for 
greater  love.  No,  that  background  is  only 
a  sort  of  movable  and  provisional  scenery 
that  serves  to  give  to  provisional  loves  the 
illusion  of  infinite  space.  Remove  it,  and 
behind  it  there  will  at  last  appear  the 
genuine  horizon,  with  the  real  sky  and  sea. 
As  for  the  great  unknown  lake,  we  soon 
perceive  that,  until  this  day,  we  had  drawn 
from  it  only  a  few  drops  of  troubled  water. 
It  does  not  open  on  to  love  its  healing 
springs  until  the  moment  of  sincerity;  for 
the  truth  in  two  beings  is  incomparably 
richer,  deeper  and  less  exhaustible  than 
their  appearance,  reticence  and  lies. 


Lastly,   let  us  not   fear  that  we  shall 

exhaust  our  sincerity   nor   imagine  that  it 

will  not  be   possible    for  us   to   attain    its 

furthest  limits.    When  we  believe  and  wish 

290 


Sincerity 

it  absolute,  it  is  never  more  than  relative; 
for  it  can  manifest  itself  only  within  the 
borders  of  our  conscience,  and  those  borders 
are  shifted  every  day,  so  that  the  act  or 
thought  which  we  present  under  the 
colours  which  we  see  in  it  at  the  moment  of 
avowal  may  have  an  import  quite  different 
from  that  which  we  attribute  to  it  to-day. 
In  the  same  way,  the  act,  thought  or  feeling 
which  we  do  not  avow,  because  we  do  not 
yet  perceive  it,  may  become  to-morrow  the 
object  of  a  more  urgent  and  graver  avowal 
than  all  those  which  we  have  made  to  this 
hour. 


291 


PORTRAIT   OF   A    LADY 


PORTRAIT  OF  A  LADY 

A  FRAGMENT 

.  .  .  He  said  that  the  intelligence  of  this  fair 
lady  was  like  a  diamond  in  a  handsome  setting. — La 
Bruyere. 


^(QHE  is  beautiful,"    he  said,    "with 

^     that  beauty  which  the  years  most 

slowly  change.    They  transform 

it  without  diminishing  it  and  in  order  to 

replace  too  fragile  graces  by  charms  that 

appear  a  little  more  grave  and  a  little  less 

touching  only  because  we  feel  them  to  be 

more  lasting.    Her  body  promises  to  retain 

for  long,  until  the  first  shock  of  old  age,  the 

pure  and  supple  lines  that  dignify  desire; 

and,  without  knowing  why,  we  are  sure  that 

it  will  keep  its  promise.    Her  flesh,  intelli- 

295 


The   Double    Garden 

gent  as  a  glance,  is  incessantly  renewed  by 
the  mind  that  quickens  it  and  dares  not 
assume  a  wrinkle,  displace  a  flower  nor 
disturb  a  curve  admired  by  love. 


II 


"It  was  not  enough  that  she  should  be 
the  one  virile  friend,  the  equal  comrade,  the 
nearest  and  deepest  companion  of  the  life 
which  she  had  linked  to  her  own.  The  star 
which  would  have  her  perfect  and  which 
she  had  learnt  not  to  resist  would  also  have 
her  remain  the  lover  of  whom  one  wearies 
not.  Friendship  without  love,  like  love 
without  friendship,  is  but  a  half-happiness 
that  makes  men  sad.  They  enjoy  the  one 
only  to  regret  the  other;  and,  finding  but  a 
mutilated  joy  on  life's  two  fairest  hill-tops, 
they  persuade  themselves  that  the  human 
soul  can  never  be  perfectly  happy. 
296 


Portrait  of  a  Lady 
III 

"Around  her  summit,  reason,  the  purest 
that  can  illumine  a  being,  keeps  watch ;  but 
it  displays  only  the  grace  and  not  the  effort 
of  light.  Nothing  appeared  to  me  colder 
than  reason,  until  I  had  seen  it  thus  play 
around  the  brow  of  a  young  woman  like 
the  lamp  of  the  sanctuary  in  the  hands  of  a 
laughing,  innocent  child.  The  lamp  leaves 
nothing  in  the  shade;  but  the  harshness  of 
its  rays  does  not  pass  the  inner  circle  of  life, 
whereas  their  smiles  beautify  all  that  they 
touch  without. 

"Her  conscience  is  so  natural  and  so 
sound  that  we  do  not  hear  it  breathe  and 
that  she  appears  unaware  of  its  existence. 
She  is  inflexible  towards  the  activity  which 
she  directs,  but  with  such  ease  that  she 
seems  to  be  stopping  to  rest  or  to  bend  over 
a  flower  when  she  is  with  all  her  strength 
resisting  an  unjust  feeling  or  thought.  A 
297 


The   Double    Garden 

movement,  an  ingenuous  and  sprightly 
phrase,  a  tear  that  laughs,  dissembles  the 
secret  of  the  deep  struggle.  All  that  she 
has  acquired  has  the  grace  of  instinct;  and 
all  that  is  instinctive  has  become  innocent. 
Of  all  the  feminine  passions,  none  has  per- 
ished, none  is  a  prisoner,  for  all  are  needed, 
the  humblest  and  most  futile  and  the  great- 
est and  most  dangerous  alike,  to  form  the 
perfume  that  love  loves  to  breathe.  But, 
although  not  held  in  bondage,  they  live  in  a 
sort  of  enchanted  garden,  whence  they  do 
not  dream  of  escaping,  where  they  lose  the 
desire  to  do  harm  and  where  the  smaller  and 
more  useless,  unable  to  remain  inactive, 
amuse  and  divert  the  greater. 

IV 

"She  has,  therefore,  by  way  of  an  adorn- 
ment, all  the  passions  and  all  the  weaknesses 
of  womankind;  and,   thanks  to  the  gods, 
298 


Portrait   of  a  Lady 

she  does  not  present  that  still-born  perfec- 
tion which  possesses  all  the  virtues  without 
being  vivified  by  a  single  fault.  In  what 
imaginary  world  do  we  find  a  virtue  that  is 
not  grafted  upon  a  defect?  A  virtue  is  but  a 
vice  that  raises  instead  of  lowering  itself; 
and  a  good  quality  is  but  a  defect  that  has 
turned  itself  to  use. 

"How  should  she  have  the  necessary 
energy  if  she  were  deprived  of  ambition  and 
pride?  How  could  she  thrust  aside  unjust 
obstacles  if  she  did  not  possess  a  reserve  of 
selfishness  proportionate  to  the  lawful 
exigencies  of  her  life?  How  should  she  be 
ardent  and  fond  if  she  were  not  sensual? 
How  should  she  be  kind  if  she  were  not  a 
little  weak?  How  should  she  be  trustful  if 
she  were  not  often  too  credulous?  How 
should  she  be  beautiful  if  she  knew  not 
mirrors  and  did  not  seek  to  please?  How 
should  she  preserve  her  feminine  grace  if 
she  had  no  innocent  vanities  ?  How  should 
299 


The  Double    Garden 

she  be  generous  if  she  were  not  a  little 
improvident?  How  should  she  be  just  if 
she  were  unable  to  he  hard,  how  brave  if 
she  were  not  rash?  How  should  she  be 
devoted  and  capable  of  sacrifice  if  she  never 
escaped  from  the  control  of  icy  reason? 
What  we  call  virtues  and  vices  are  the  same 
forces  passing  along  a  life.  They  change 
their  name,  according  to  the  direction  in 
which  they  go :  to  the  left,  they  fall  into  the 
shallows  of  ugliness,  selfishness  and  folly; 
to  the  right,  they  climb  to  the  high  lands  of 
nobleness,  generosity  and  intelligence.  They 
are  good  or  bad  according  to  what  they  do 
and  not  according  to  the  title  which  they 
bear. 


"When  a  man's  virtues  are  depicted  for 
us,  they   are   represented   in   the  effort  of 
action;  but  those  which  are  admired  in  a 
300 


Portrait  of  a  Lady 

woman  always  infer  a  model  as  motionless 
as  a  beautiful  statue  in  a  marble  gallery. 
She  is  an  inconsistent  image,  a  tissue  of  vices 
quiescent,  of  inert  qualities,  of  slumbering 
epithets,  of  passive  movements,  of  negative 
forces.  She  is  chaste  because  she  has  no 
senses,  she  is  kind  because  she  does  harm  to 
none,  she  is  just  because  she  does  not  act, 
she  is  patient  and  resigned  because  she  is 
devoid  of  energy,  she  is  indulgent  because 
none  offends  her  or  forgiving  because  she 
has  not  the  courage  to  resist,  she  is  charita- 
ble because  she  allows  herself  to  be  stripped 
or  because  her  charity  deprives  her  of  no- 
thing, she  is  faithful,  she  is  loyal,  she  is 
submissive,  she  is  devoted  because  all  these 
virtues  can  live  in  emptiness  and  can  blos- 
som on  a  dead  woman's  body.  But  what 
shall  happen  if  the  image  takes  life  and 
comes  forth  from  her  retreat  to  enter  upon 
an  existence  in  which  all  that  does  not  take 
part  in  the  movement  that  surrounds  it 
301 


The   Double    Garden 

becomes  a  pitiful  or  dangerous  wreck?  Is 
it  still  a  virtue  to  keep  faithful  to  an  ill- 
chosen  or  morally  extinguished  love,  or  to 
remain  subject  to  an  unintelligent  or  unjust 
master?  Is  to  refrain  from  harming 
enough  to  make  one  kind,  to  refrain  from 
lying  enough  to  make  one  true?  There  is  the 
morality  of  those  who  keep  to  the  banks  of 
the  great  river  and  the  morality  of  those 
who  ascend  the  stream.  There  is  the 
morality  of  sleep  and  that  of  action,  the 
morality  of  shadow  and  that  of  light;  and 
the  virtues  of  the  first,  which  may  be 
described  as  concave  virtues,  must  needs 
arise,  stand  up  and  become  virtues 
in  relief,  if  they  are  to  remain  virtues 
in  the  second.  The  matter  and  the 
lines  perhaps  remain  identical,  but  the 
values  are  exactly  reversed.  Patience, 
mildness,  submissiveness,  confidence,  renun- 
ciation, resignation,  devotion,  sacrifice,  all 
fruits  of  passive  goodness,  become,  if  we 
302 


Portrait  of  a  Lady 

remove  them,  such  as  they  are,  into  the  stern 
outer  life,  no  more  than  weakness,  servility, 
indifference,  unconsciousness,  indolence, 
unconstraint,  folly  or  cowardice  and  must, 
in  order  to  keep  at  the  necessary  level  the 
source  of  goodness  from  which  they  spring, 
be  able  to  develop  into  energy,  firmness, 
obstinacy,  prudence,  indignation  and  revolt. 
Loyalty,  which  has  scarce  anything  to  fear 
so  long  as  it  does  not  stir,  must  be  careful 
lest  it  be  duped  and  surrender  its  arms  to  the 
enemy.  Chastity,  which  sat  waiting  with 
eyes  closed  and  hands  folded,  has  the  right 
to  change  into  passion,  which  shall  decide 
and  settle  destiny.  And  the  same  consecu- 
tively with  all  the  virtues  which  have  a  name 
as  with  those  which  are  as  yet  unnamed. 
Next,  it  is  a  problem  to  know  which  is 
preferable,  active  or  passive  life,  that  which 
mingles  with  men  and  events  or  that  which 
shuns  them.  Is  there  a  moral  law  that 
imposes  the  one  or  the  other,  or  has  each 
303 


The    Double  Garden 

the  right  to  make  his  choice  according  to  his 
tastes,  his  character,  his  aptitudes?  Is  it 
better  or  worse  that  the  active  or  the  passive 
virtues  should  stand  in  the  foreground  ?  It 
may,  I  think,  be  declared  that  the  former 
always  imply  the  second,  but  that  the  con- 
verse is  not  true.  Thus,  the  woman  of 
whom  I  speak  is  the  more  capable  of  devo- 
tion and  sacrifice  in  that  she  has  the  strength 
to  ward  off  their  overwhelming  necessity 
longer  than  any  others.  She  will  not  culti- 
vate sadness  or  suffering  vaguely,  as  a 
means  of  expiation  or  purification;  but  she 
is  able  to  accept  and  go  in  search  of  them 
with  ingenuous  ardour  in  order  to  save  those 
whom  she  loves  a  small  affliction  or  a  great 
sorrow  which  she  feels  herself  strong 
enough  to  face  alone  and  to  overcome  in 
silence  in  her  secret  heart.  How  often  have 
I  not  seen  her  force  back  tears  ready  to 
gush  forth  under  unjust  reproaches,  while 
her  lips,  on  which  flickered  a  fevered  smile, 
304 


Portrait  of  a  Lady 

held  back,  with  almost  invisible  courage, 
the  word  which  would  have  justified  her, 
but  which  would  have  crushed  him  who  mis- 
judged her.  For,  like  all  just  and  good 
beings,  she  had  naturally  to  undergo  the 
petty  injustice  and  the  petty  wickedness  of 
those  who  hover  indeterminately  between 
good  and  evil  and  who  hasten  to  abuse  the 
indulgence  or  forgiveness  too  frequently 
obtained.  There  you  have  that  which, 
better  than  any  slack  and  weeping  acquies- 
cence, shows  an  ardent  and  potent  reserve  of 
love. 


VI 


"Iphigenia,  Antigone  or  sister  of  chanty, 
like  every  woman,  if  need  be,  she  will  not 
ask  Fate  to  wound  her  to  the  death,  as 
though  in  order  to  be  able  at  last,  in  the 
final  struggle,  to  weigh  the  perhaps  wonder- 
ful powers  of  an  unexplored  heart.  She 
30s 


The  Double    Garden 

has  learnt  to  know  their  number  and  their 
weight  in  the  peace  and  certainty  of  her 
conscience.  Apart  from  one  of  those  tests 
in  which  life  brings  us  to  a  standstill  at  the 
relentless  barriers  of  a  fatality  or  an  inexor- 
able natural  law,  she  will  instinctively  take 
another  road  to  reach  the  end  pointed  out 
by  duty.  In  any  case,  her  devotion  and 
sacrifice  will  never  be  resigned,  will  never 
abandon  themselves  to  the  perfidious  sweet- 
ness of  sorrow.  Ever  upon  the  watch,  upon 
the  defensive,  and  full  of  strenuous  confi- 
dence, she  will  to  the  last  moment  seek  the 
weak  spot  in  the  event  that  is  crushing  her. 
Her  tears  will  be  as  pure,  as  gentle  as  the 
tears  of  those  who  do  not  resist  the  insults 
of  chance;  but,  instead  of  dimming  her 
gaze,  they  will  summon  to  it  and  multiply 
in  It  the  light  that  consoles  or  saves. 


906 


Portrait  of  a  Lady 
VII 

"For  the  rest,"  he  added,  in  conclusion, 
"the  Artenice  whom  I  have  endeavoured  to 
depict  to  you  will,  under  the  features  which 
I  have  given  her,  appear  either  perfectly 
hateful  or  perfectly  beautiful  according  to 
the  ideal  which  each  of  you  carries  within 
himself  or  believes  himself  to  have  met. 
There  is  no  agreeing  except  on  passive 
virtues.  These  have,  from  the  point  of 
view  of  painting,  an  advantage  which  the 
others  do  not  enjoy.  It  is  easy  to  evoke 
resignation,  abnegation,  submissiveness, 
virginal  modesty,  humility,  piety,  renuncia- 
tion, devotion,  the  spirit  of  sacrifice,  sim- 
plicity, ingenuousness,  candour,  the  whole 
silent  and  often  desolate  group  of  woman's 
powers  scared  away  into  life's  dim  corners. 
The  eye  recognizes  with  emotion  the 
familiar  colours  faded  by  the  centuries;  and 
the  picture  is  always  full  of  a  plaintive 
307 


The  Double    Garden 

grace.  It  would  seem  as  if  those  virtues 
could  not  be  mistaken,  and  their  very 
excesses  make  them  more  touching.  But 
what  an  unusual  and  ungrateful  face  is 
worn  by  those  which  stand  out,  which  assert 
themselves  and  which  struggle  without  the 
gates  I  A  mere  nothing,  a  stray  lock,  a  fold 
of  a  garment  that  is  not  in  its  customary 
place,  a  tense  muscle,  makes  them  unpleas- 
ing  or  suspicious,  pretentious  or  hard. 
Woman  has  so  long  lived  kneeling  in  the 
shadow  that  our  prejudiced  eyes  find  it 
difficult  to  seize  the  harmony  of  the  first 
movements  which  she  risks  when  rising  to 
her  feet  in  the  light  of  day.  But  all  that 
one  can  say  when  striving  to  paint  the 
intimate  portrait  of  a  being  bears  but  a  very 
imperfect  resemblance  to  the  more  precise 
image  which  our  thoughts  form  in  our 
minds  at  the  moment  when  we  are  speaking 
of  him;  and  this  last  image,  in  its  turn,  is 
but  a  sketch  of  the  great  likeness,  living, 
308 


Portrait  of  a  Lady 

profound,  but  incommunicable,  which  his 
presence  has  imprinted  in  our  heart,  like  the 
light  on  the  sensitized  plate.  Compare  the 
last  proof  with  the  first  two :  however  exact, 
however  well  impressed  we  may  think  these 
to  be,  they  no  longer  offer  more  than  the 
garlands  and  arabesques  of  frames  more  or 
less  appropriate  to  the  subject  which  they 
await;  but  the  genuine  face,  the  authentic 
and  integral  being,  with  the  only  real  good 
and  evil  which  he  contains  beneath  his 
apparently  real  vices  and  virtues,  emerges 
from  the  shadow  only  at  the  immediate 
contact  of  two  lives.  The  finest  energies 
and  the  worst  weaknesses  add  hardly  any- 
thing to  the  mysterious  entity  that  asserts 
itself,  take  hardly  anything  from  it;  and 
what  is  revealed  is  the  very  quality  of  its 
destiny.  We  then  become  aware  that  the 
existence  which  we  have  before  us,  all  the 
hidden  possibilities  of  which  only  pass 
through  our  eyes  to  reach  our  soul,  is  really 
309 


The    Double    Garden 

that  which  it  would  wish  to  become,  or  will 
never  be  that  which  it  loyally  strives  not  to 
remain. 

VIII 

"If  it  matters  much  to  friendship  and 
love,  it  matters  but  little  to  our  instinctive 
sympathy  that  some  one  should  be  good  or 
bad,  do  good  or  ill,  provided  that  we  accept 
the  secret  force  that  animates  him.  That 
secret  force  often  reveals  itself  at  the  first 
meeting;  sometimes  also  we  learn  to  know 
it  only  after  long  habit.  It  has  scarce  any- 
thing in  common  with  the  outward  acts  or 
even  with  the  thoughts  of  the  real  person, 
who  does  not  seem  to  be  its  exact  representa- 
tive, but  its  chance  interpreter,  by  means  of 
whom  it  manifests  itself  as  best  it  may. 
Thus  we  have  all  of  us,  among  those  whom 
the  see-saw  of  our  days  mingles  with  our 
existence,  friends  or  associates  whom  we 
310 


Portrait   of  a  Lady 

scarcely  esteem,  who  have  done  us  more 
than  one  ill  office  and  in  whom  we  know 
that  we  can  have  no  confidence.  Neverthe- 
less, we  do  not  bring  ourselves  to  despise 
them  as  they  deserve  and  to  thrust  them 
from  our  path.  Across  and  in  spite  of  all 
that  separates  us  and  all  that  disfigures 
them,  an  averment  in  which  we  place  a  more 
solid  and  more  organic  belief  than  in  all 
the  experience  and  all  the  arguments  of 
reason,  an  obscure  but  invincible  averment 
testifies  to  us  that  that  man,  were  he  to  pre- 
cipitate us  into  the  most  real  and  most  grave 
misfortunes,  is  not  our  enemy  in  the  general 
and  eternal  plan  of  life.  It  may  be  that 
there  is  no  sanction  for  these  sympathies 
and  antipathies,  and  that  nothing  answers 
to  them  either  among  the  visible  or  invisible 
phenomena  of  which  our  existence  is  made 
up,  or  among  the  known  or  unknown  fluids 
that  form  and  maintain  our  physical  or 
moral  health,  our  feelings  of  joy  or  sadness 
311 


The   Double    Garden 

and  the  mobile  and  most  impressionable 
medium  in  which  our  destiny  floats.  The 
fact  none  the  less  remains  that  there  is  here 
an  undeniable  force  which  plays  a  decisive 
part  in  the  accomplishment  of  our  happi- 
ness, both  in  friendship  and  in  love.  This 
third  power  has  regard  to  neither  age  nor 
sex,  neither  beauty  nor  ugliness ;  it  is  inde- 
pendent of  physical  or  sexual  attraction  and 
of  affinities  of  mind  and  character.  It  is, 
as  it  were,  the  beneficent  and  generous 
atmosphere  in  which  that  attraction  and 
those  affinities  bathe.  To  the  absence  of  this 
third  power,  this  vivifying  atmosphere, 
from  love  are  due  all  the  misunderstand- 
ings, all  the  griefs,  all  the  deceptions  that 
disunite  two  beings  who  esteem,  understand 
and  passionately  love  each  other.  Since  the 
nature  of  this  power  Is  unknown,  it  is  given 
various  obscure  names.  It  is  called  the 
soul,  the  instinct,  the  unconscious  or  the 
subconscious,  the  divine  even.  It  probably 
312 


Portrait  of  a  Lady 

emanates  from  the  undefined  organ  that 
binds  us  to  all  that  does  not  directly  concern 
our  individuality,  to  all  that  extends  beyond 
it  in  time  and  space,  in  the  past  and  in  the 
future." 


313 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE 


THE  LEAF  OF  OLIVE. 
I 

LET  us  not  forget  that  we  live  in  preg- 
nant and  decisive  times.  It  is  prob- 
able that  our  descendants  will  envy 
us  the  dawn  through  which,  without  know- 
ing it,  we  are  passing,  just  as  we  envy  those 
who  took  part  in  the  age  of  Pericles,  in  the 
most  glorious  days  of  Roman  greatness  and 
in  certain  hours  of  the  Italian  Renascence. 
The  splendid  dust  that  clouds  the  great 
movements  of  men  shines  brightly  in  the 
memory,  but  blinds  those  who  raise  it  and 
breathe  it,  hiding  from  them  the  direction 
of  their  road  and,  above  all,  the  thought, 
the  necessity  or  the  instinct  that  leads  them. 
It  concerns  us  to  take  account  of  this. 
The  web  of  daily  life  varies  little  through- 
317 


The    Double  Garden 

out  the  centuries  in  which  men  have  attained 
a  certain  facility  of  existence.  This  web,  in 
which  the  surface  occupied  by  boons  and 
evils  remains  much  the  same,  shows  through 
it  either  light  or  dark  according  to  the  pre- 
dominant idea  of  the  generation  that  un- 
folds it.  And,  whatever  its  form  or  its  dis- 
guise may  be,  this  idea  always  reduces  itself, 
in  the  ultimate  issue,  to  a  certain  conception 
of  the  universe.  Private  or  public  calamity 
and  prosperity  have  but  a  fleeting  influence 
on  the  happiness  and  unhappiness  of  man- 
kind, so  long  as  they  do  not  modify  the 
general  ideas  with  which  it  is  nurtured  and 
enlightened  on  the  subject  of  its  gods,  of 
infinity,  of  the  great  unknown  and  of  the 
world's  economy.  Hence,  we  must  seek 
there,  rather  than  in  wars  and  civil  troubles, 
if  we  would  know  whether  a  generation 
have  passed  in  darkness  or  in  light,  in 
distress  or  in  joyfulness.  There  we  see 
why  one  people,  which  underwent  many 
318 


The  Leaf  of  Olive 

reverses,  has  left  us  numberless  evidences 
of  beauty  and  of  gladness,  whereas  another, 
which  was  naturally  rich  or  often  victori- 
ous, has  bequeathed  to  us  only  the  monu- 
ments of  a  dull  and  awe-struck  life. 


II 

We  are  emerging  (to  speak  only  of  the 
last  three  or  four  centuries  of  our  present 
civilization),  we  are  emerging  from  the 
great  religious  period.  During  this  period, 
despite  the  hopes  laid  beyond  the  tomb, 
human  life  stood  out  against  a  somewhat 
gloomy  and  threatening  background.  This 
background  allowed  the  thousand  mobile 
and  diversely  shaded  curtains  of  art  and 
metaphysics  to  intervene  pretty  freely  be- 
tween the  last  men  and  its  faded  folds.  Its 
existence  was  to  some  extent  forgotten.  It 
no  longer  appeared  in  view  save  at  the  hour 
of  the  great  rifts.  Nevertheless,  it  always 
319 


The  Double    Garden 

existed  in  the  immanent  state,  giving  a  uni- 
form colour  to  the  atmosphere  and  the 
landscape  and  giving  to  human  life  a  diffuse 
meaning  which  proposed  a  sort  of  provi- 
sional patience  upon  questions  that  were  too 
pressing. 

To-day,  this  background  is  disappearing 
in  tatters.  What  is  there  in  its  place  to  give 
a  visible  form,  a  new  meaning  to  the 
horizon  ? 

The  fallacious  axis  upon  which  humanity 
believed  itself  to  revolve  has  suddenly 
snapped  in  two;  and  the  huge  platform 
which  carries  mankind,  after  swaying  for 
some  time  in  our  alarmed  imaginations,  has 
quietly  settled  itself  again  to  turning  on 
the  real  pivot  that  had  always  supported  it. 
Nothing  is  changed  except  one  of  those  un- 
explained phrases  with  which  we  cover  the 
things  which  we  do  not  understand.  Hith- 
erto, the  pivot  of  the  world  seemed  to  us  to 
be  made  up  of  spiritual  forces;  to-day,  we 

320 


The  Leaf  of  Olive 

are  convinced  that  it  is  composed  of  purely 
material  energies.  We  flatter  ourselves  that 
a  great  revolution  has  been  accomplished  in 
the  kingdom  of  truth.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
there  has  been,  in  the  republic  of  our 
ignorance,  but  a  permutation  of  epithets, 
a  sort  of  verbal  coup  d'Etat,  the  words 
"mind"  and  "matter"  being  no  more  than 
the  interchangeable  attributes  of  the  same 
unknown. 


Ill 

But  if  It  be  true  that,  in  themselves, 
these  epithets  should  have  merely  a  literary 
value,  since  both  are  probably  inaccurate 
and  no  more  represent  reality  than  the 
epithet  "Atlantic"  or  "Pacific"  represents 
the  ocean  to  which  it  is  applied,  they  do, 
nevertheless,  according  as  we  adhere  ex- 
clusively to  the  first  or  to  the  second,  exer- 
cise a  prodigious  influence  over  our  future, 
321 


The    Double    Garden 

over  our  morality  and,  consequently,  over 
our  happiness.  We  wander  round  the 
truth,  with  no  other  guide  than  hypotheses 
which  light,  by  way  of  torches,  some 
fumous,  but  magic  phrases,  and  soon  those 
phrases  become  for  us  so  many  living 
entities,  which  place  themselves  at  the  head 
of  our  physical,  intellectual  and  moral 
activity.  If  we  believe  that  mind  directs 
the  universe,  all  our  researches  and  all  our 
hopes  are  concentrated  upon  our  own  mind, 
or  rather  upon  its  verbal  and  imaginative 
faculties  and  we  become  addicted  to  the- 
ology and  metaphysics.  If  we  are  per- 
suaded that  the  last  word  of  the  riddle  lies 
in  matter,  we  apply  ourselves  exclusively  to 
interrogating  this  and  we  place  our  confi- 
dence in  experimental  science  only.  We  are 
beginning,  however,  to  recognize  that  "ma- 
terialism" and  "spiritualism"  are  merely 
the  two  opposite,  but  identical  names  of 
our  Impotent  labour  after  comprehension. 
322 


The  Leaf  of  Olive 

Nevertheless,  each  of  the  two  methods 
drags  us  into  a  moral  world  that  seems  to 
belong  to  a  different  planet. 


IV 


Let  us  pass  over  the  accessory  conse- 
quences. The  great  advantage  of  the 
spiritualistic  interpretation  is  that  it  gives 
to  our  life  a  morality,  an  aim  and  a  mean- 
ing that  are  imaginary,  but  very  much 
superior  to  those  which  our  cultivated  in- 
stincts proffer  to  it.  The  more  or  less  unbe- 
lieving spiritualism  of  to-day  still  draws 
light  from  the  reflection  of  that  advantage 
and  preserves  a  deep,  though  somewhat 
shapeless  faith  in  the  final  supremacy  and 
the  indeterminate  triumph  of  the  mind. 

The  other  interpretation,  on  the  contrary, 

offers  us  no  morality,  no  ideal  superior  to 

our  instinct,  no  aim  situate  outside  ourselves 

and  no  horizon  other  than  space.    Or  else, 

323 


The    Double  Garden 

if  we  could  derive  a  morality  from  the  only 
synthetic  theory  that  has  sprung  from  the 
innumerable  experimental  and  fragmentary 
statements  which  form  the  imposing  but 
dumb  mass  of  the  conquests  of  science,  I 
mean  the  theory  of  evolution,  it  would  be 
the  horrible  and  monstrous  morality  of 
nature,  that  is  to  say,  the  adaptation  of  the 
species  to  the  environment,  the  triumph  of 
the  strongest  and  all  the  crimes  necessary  to 
the  struggle  of  life.  Now  this  morality, 
which  does,  in  the  meanwhile,  appear  to  be 
another  certainty,  the  essential  morality  of 
all  earthly  life,  since  it  inspires  the  actions 
of  agile  and  ephemeral  man  as  well  as  the 
slow  movements  of  the  undying  crystals: 
this  morality  would  soon  become  fatal  to 
mankind  if  it  were  practised  to  an  extreme. 
All  religions,  all  philosophies,  the  counsels 
of  gods  and  wise  men  have  had  no  other 
object  than  to  introduce  into  this  over- 
heated environment,  which,  if  it  were  pure, 
324 


The  Leaf  of  Olive 

would  probably  dissolve  our  species,  ele- 
ments that  should  reduce  its  virulence. 
These  were,  more  particularly,  a  belief  in 
just  and  dread  gods,  a  hope  of  reward  and 
a  fear  of  eternal  punishment.  There  were 
also  neutral  matters  and  antidotes,  for 
which,  with  a  somewhat  curious  foresight, 
nature  had  reserved  a  place  in  our  own 
hearts:  I  mean  goodness,  pity,  a  sense  of 
justice. 

Wherefore,  this  intolerant  and  exclusive 
environment,  which  was  to  be  our  natural 
and  normal  environment,  was  never  and 
probably  never  will  be  pure.  Be  this  as  it 
may,  the  state  in  which  it  is  to-day  offers 
a  strange  and  noteworthy  spectacle.  It  is 
fretting,  bubbling  and  being  precipitated 
like  a  fluid  into  which  chance  has  let  fall  a 
few  drops  of  some  unknown  reagent.  The 
compensating  principles  which  religion  had 
added  to  it  are  gradually  evaporating  and 
being  eliminated  at  the  top,  while  at  the 
32s 


The    Double  Garden 

bottom  they  are  coagulating  into  a  thick 
and  inactive  mass.  But,  in  proportion  as 
these  disappear,  the  purely  human  anti- 
dotes, although  oxydized  through  and 
through  by  the  elimination  of  the  religious 
elements,  gain  greater  vigour  and  seem  to 
exert  themselves  to  maintain  the  standard 
of  the  mixture  in  which  the  human  species 
is  being  cultivated  by  an  obscure  destiny. 
Pending  the  arrival  of  as  yet  mysterious 
auxiliaries,  they  occupy  the  place  abandoned 
by  the  evaporating  forces. 


Is  it  not  surprising,  at  the  outset,  that,  in 
spite  of  the  decrease  of  religious  feeling 
and  the  influence  which  this  decrease  must 
needs  have  upon  human  reason,  which  no 
longer  sees  any  supernatural  interest  in 
doing  good,  while  the  natural  interest  in 
doing  good  is  fairly  disputable :  is  it  not  sur- 
326 


The  Leaf  of  Olive 

prising  that  the  sum  of  justice  and  goodness 
and  the  quality  of  the  general  conscience, 
far  from  diminishing,  have  incontestably, 
increased?  I  say  incontestably,  although 
doubtless  the  fact  will  be  contested.  To 
establish  it,  we  should  have  to  review  all 
history,  or,  at  the  very  least,  that  of  the  last 
few  centuries,  compare  the  position  of  those 
who  were  unhappy  formerly  with  that  of 
those  who  are  unhappy  now,  place  beside 
the  sum  total  of  the  injustice  of  yesterday 
the  sum  total  of  the  injustice  of  to-day,  con- 
trast the  state  of  the  serf,  the  semi-serf,  the 
peasant,  the  labourer,  under  the  old  sys- 
tems of  government,  with  the  condition  of 
our  working-man,  set  the  indifference,  the 
unconsciousness,  the  easy  and  harsh  cer- 
tainty of  those  who  possessed  the  land  in 
former  days  against  the  sympathy,  the  self- 
reproachful  restlessness,  the  scruples  of 
those  who  possess  the  land  to-day.  All  this 
would  demand  a  detailed  and  very  long 
327 


The  Double    Garden 

study;  but  I  think  that  any  fair  mind  will, 
without  difficulty,  allow  tha*^  there  is,  not- 
withstanding the  existence  of  too  much  real 
and  widespread  wretchedness,  a  little  more 
justice,  solidarity,  sympathy  and  hope,  not 
only  in  the  wishes  of  men — for  thus  much 
seems  certain — but  in  very  deed. 

To  what  religion,  to  what  thoughts,  to 
what  new  elements  are  we  to  attribute  this 
illogical  improvement  in  our  moral  atmo- 
sphere? It  is  difficult  to  state  precisely;  for, 
though  it  is  certain  that  they  are  beginning 
to  act  in  a  very  perceptible  manner,  they  are 
still  too  recent,  too  shapeless,  too  unsettled 
for  us  to  qualify  them. 

VI 

Let  us,  nevertheless,  try  to  pick  out  a  few 

clues;  and  let  us  state,  in  the  first  place,  that 

our  conception  of  the  universe  has  been 

greatly  and  most  effectively  modified  and, 

3aS 


The  Leaf  of  Olive 

above  all,  that  it  is  tending  to  become  modi- 
fied more  and  more  rapidly.  Without  our 
accounting  for  it,  each  of  the  numerous  dis- 
coveries of  science — whether  affecting  his- 
tory, anthropology,  geography,  geology, 
medicine,  physics,  chemistry,  astronomy  or 
the  rest — changes  our  accustomed  atmo- 
sphere and  adds  some  essential  thing  to  an 
image  which  we  do  not  yet  distinguish,  but 
which  we  see  looming  above  us,  occupying 
the  whole  horizon,  and  which  we  feel,  by  a 
presentiment,  to  be  enormous.  Its  features 
are  straggling,  like  those  illuminations 
which  we  see  at  evening  fetes.  A  frontal, 
colonnade,  cupola  and  portico,  all  incohe- 
rent, appear  abruptly  in  the  sky.  We  do 
not  know  what  they  mean,  to  what  they 
belong.  They  hang  absurdly  in  the  motion- 
less ether;  they  are  inconsistent  dreams  in 
the  still  firmament.  But,  suddenly,  a  little 
line  of  light  meanders  across  the  blue,  and, 
in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  connects  the 
329 


The  Double    Garden 

cupola  with  the  columns,  the  portico  with 
the  frontal,  the  steps  with  the  ground ;  and 
the  unexpected  edifice,  as  though  flinging 
aside  a  mask  of  darkness,  stands  affirmed 
and  explicit  in  the  night. 

It  is  this  little  line  of  light,  this  deciding 
undulation,  this  flash  of  general  and  com- 
plementary fire  that  is  still  lacking  in  the 
night  of  our  intelligence.  But  we  feel  that 
it  exists,  that  it  is  there,  outlined  in  shadow 
in  the  darkness,  and  that  a  mere  nothing,  a 
spark  issuing  from  we  know  not  what 
science  will  be  enough  to  light  it  and  to  give 
an  infallible  and  exact  sense  to  our  immense 
presentiments  and  to  all  the  scattered 
notions  that  seem  to  stray  through  unfath- 
omable space. 

VII 

Meanwhile,  this  space — the  abode  of  our 
ignorance — ^which,  after  the  disappearance 
of  the  religious  ideas,  had  appeared  fright- 
330 


The  Leaf  of  Olive 

fully  empty,  is  gradually  becoming  peopled 
with  vague,  but  enormous  figures.  Each 
time  that  one  of  these  new  forms  uprises, 
the  boundless  extent  in  which  it  comes  to 
move  increases  in  proportions  that  are 
boundless  in  their  turn;  for  the  limits  of 
boundlessness  evolve  in  our  imagination 
without  ceasing.  Assuredly,  the  gods  who 
conceived  certain  positive  religions  were 
sometimes  very  great.  The  Jewish  and 
Christian  God,  for  instance,  declared  Him- 
self incommensurable,  containing  all  things, 
and  His  first  attributes  were  eternity  and 
infinity.  But  the  infinite  is  an  abstract  and 
tenebrous  notion  which  assumes  life  and  is 
explained" only  by  the  displacing  of  frontiers 
which  we  thrust  back  further  and  further 
into  the  finite.  It  constitutes  a  formless  ex- 
tent of  which  we  can  acquire  a  conscious- 
ness only  with  the  aid  of  a  few  phenomena 
that  start  up  on  points  more  or  less  distant 
from  the  centre  of  our  imagination.  It  is 
331 


The  Double    Garden 

efficacious  only  through  the  multiplicity  of 
the,  so  to  speak,  tangible  and  positive  faces 
of  the  unknown  which  it  reveals  to  us  in  its 
depths.  It  does  not  become  comprehensible 
and  perceptible  to  us  until  it  shows  anima- 
tion and  movement  and  kindles  on  the 
several  horizons  of  space  questions  more 
and  more  distant,  more  and  more  foreign  to 
all  our  uncertainties.  For  our  life  to  take 
part  in  its  life,  the  infinite  must  question  us 
incessantly  and  incessantly  place  us  in  the 
presence  of  the  infinity  of  our  ignorance, 
which  is  the  only  visible  garment  beneath 
which  it  allows  us  to  conjecture  the  infinity 
of  its  existence. 

Now  the  most  incommensurable  gods 
hardly  put  questions  similar  to  those  which 
are  endlessly  put  to  us  by  that  which  their 
adorers  call  the  void,  which  is,  in  reality, 
nature.  They  were  content  to  reign  in  a 
dead  space,  without  events  and  without 
images,  consequently  without  points  of 
332 


The  Leaf  of  Olive 

reference  for  our  imagination,  and  hav- 
ing only  an  immutable  and  immobile  influ- 
ence over  our  thoughts  and  feelings.  Thus, 
our  sense  of  the  finite,  which  is  the  source 
of  all  higher  activity,  became  atrophied 
within  us.  Our  intelligence,  in  order  to  live 
on  the  confines  of  itself,  where  it  accom- 
plishes its  loftiest  mission,  our  thought,  in 
order  to  fill  the  whole  space  of  our  brain, 
needs  to  be  continually  excited  by  fresh 
recallings  of  the  unknown.  So  soon  as  it 
ceases  to  be  daily  summoned  to  the  ex- 
tremity of  its  own  strength  by  some  new 
fact — and  there  are  hardly  any  new  facts  in 
the  reign  of  the  gods — it  falls  asleep,  con- 
tracts, gives  way  and  sinks  into  decay. 
One  thing  alone  is  capable  of  dilating 
equally,  in  all  their  parts,  all  the  lobes  of 
our  head,  and  that  is  the  active  idea  which 
we  conceive  of  the  riddle  in  the  midst  of 
which  we  have  our  being.  Is  there  danger 
of  error  in  declaring  that  never  was  the 

333 


The  Double    Garden 

activity  of  this  idea  comparable  with  that 
of  to-day?  Never  before,  neither  at  the 
time  when  the  Hindoo,  Jewish  or  Christian 
theology  flourished,  nor  in  the  days  when 
Greek  or  German  metaphysics  were  engag- 
ing all  the  forces  of  human  genius,  was  our 
conception  of  the  universe  enlivened,  en- 
riched and  broadened  by  proofs  so  unex- 
pected, so  laden  with  mystery,  so  energetic, 
so  real.  Until  now,  it  was  fed  on  indirect 
nourishment,  so  to  speak,  or  rather  it  fed 
illusively  on  itself.  It  inflated  itself  with 
its  own  breath,  sprinkled  itself  with  its  own 
waters,  and  very  little  came  to  it  from  with- 
out. To-day,  the  universe  itself  is  begin- 
ning to  penetrate  into  the  conception 
which  we  form  of  it.  The  diet  of  our 
thought  is  changed.  That  which  it  takes 
comes  from  outside  itself  and  adds  to  its 
substance.  It  borrows  instead  of  lending. 
It  no  longer  sheds  around  itself  the  reflec- 
tion of  its  own  greatness,  but  absorbs  the 

334 


The  Leaf  of  Olive 

greatness  around  it.  Until  now,  we  had 
been  prosing,  with  the  aid  of  our  infirm 
logic  or  our  idle  imagination,  on  the  sub- 
ject of  the  riddle;  to-day,  issuing  from  our 
too  inward  abode,  we  are  trying  to  enter 
into  relations  with  the  riddle  itself.  It 
questions  us,  and  we  stammer  as  best  we 
may.  We  put  questions  to  it,  and, 
in  reply,  it  unmasks,  at  moments,  a 
luminous  and  boundless  perspective  in 
the  immense  circle  of  darkness  amid 
which  we  move.  We  were,  it  might 
be  said,  like  blind  men  who  should 
imagine  the  outer  world  from  inside  a  shut 
room.  Now,  we  are  those  same  blind  men 
whom  an  ever-silent  guide  leads  by  turns 
into  the  forest,  across  the  plain,  on  the 
mountain  and  beside  the  sea.  Their  eyes 
have  not  yet  opened ;  but  their  shaking  and 
eager  hands  are  able  to  feel  the  trees,  to 
rumple  the  spikes  of  corn,  to  gather  a 
flower  or  a  fruit,  to  marvel  at  the  ridge  of 

335 


The  Double    Garden 

a  rock  or  to  mingle  with  the  cool  waves, 
while  their  ears  learn  to  distinguish,  with- 
out needing  .to  understand,  the  thousand 
real  songs  of  the  sun  and  the  shade,  the 
wind  and  the  rain,  the  leaves  and  the 
waters. 

VIII 

If  our  happiness,  as  we  said  above,  de- 
pends upon  our  conception  of  the  universe, 
this  is,  in  a  great  measure,  because  our 
morality  depends  upon  it.  And  our  morality 
depends  much  less  upon  the  nature  than 
upon  the  size  of  that  conception.  We 
should  be  better,  nobler,  more  moral  in 
the  midst  of  a  universe  proved  to  be  with- 
out morality,  but  conceived  on  an  infinite 
scale,  than  in  a  universe  which  attained  the 
perfection  of  the  human  ideal,  but  which 
appeared  to  us  circumscribed  and  devoid 
of  mystery.  It  is,  before  all,  important  to 
make  as  vast  as  possible  the  place  in  which 
336 


The  Leaf  of  Olive 

are  developed  all  our  thoughts  and  all  our 
feelings;  and  this  place  is  none  other  than 
that  in  which  we  picture  the  universe.  We 
are  unable  to  move  except  within  the  idea 
which  we  create  for  ourselves  of  the  world 
in  which  we  move.  Everything  starts  from 
that,  everything  flows  from  it;  and  all  our 
acts,  most  often  unknown  to  ourselves,  are 
modified  by  the  height  and  the  breadth  of 
that  immense  well  of  force  which  exists  at 
the  summit  of  our  conscience. 


IX 


I  think  that  we  may  say  that  never  was 
that  well  larger  nor  more  highly  placed. 
Certainly,  the  idea  which  we  shape  for  our- 
selves of  the  organization  and  government 
of  the  infinite  powers  is  less  precise  than 
heretofore;  but  this  is  for  the  good  and 
noble  reason  that  it  no  longer  admits  of 
falsely-defined  conventional  limits.    It  no 

337 


The  Double    Garden 

longer  contains  any  fixed  morality,  any  con- 
solation, any  promise,  any  certain  hope. 
It  is  bare  and  almost  empty,  because  noth- 
ing subsists  in  it  that  is  not  the  very  bed- 
rock of  some  primitive  facts.  It  no  longer 
has  a  voice,  it  no  longer  has  images,  except 
to  proclaim  and  illustrate  its  immensity. 
Outside  that,  it  no  longer  tells  us  anything; 
but  this  immensity,  having  remained  its 
sole  imperious  and  irrefutable  attribute, 
surpasses  in  energy,  nobility  and  eloquence 
all  the  attributes,  all  the  virtues  and  per- 
fections with  which  we  had  hitherto  peo- 
pled our  unknown.  It  lays  no  duty  upon 
us,  but  it  maintains  us  in  a  state  of  great- 
ness that  will  permit  us  more  easily  and 
more  generously  to  perform  all  those  duties 
which  await  us  on  the  threshold  of  a  com- 
ing future.  By  bringing  us  nearer  to  our 
true  place  in  the  system  of  the  worlds,  it 
adds  to  our  spiritual  and  general  life  all 
that  it  takes  away  from  our  material  and 
338 


The  Leaf  of  Olive 

individual  importance.  The  more  it  makes 
us  recognize  our  littleness,  the  greater 
grows  that  within  us  which  recognizes  this 
littleness.  A  new  being,  more  disinterested 
and  probably  closer  to  that  which  is  one 
day  to  proclaim  itself  the  last  truth.  Is  grad- 
ually taking  the  place  of  the  original  being 
which  is  being  dissolved  in  the  conception 
that  overwhelms  it. 


X 

To  this  new  being,  itself  and  all  the  men 
around  it  now  represent  only  so  inconsidera- 
ble a  speck  in  the  infinity  of  the  eternal 
forces  that  they  are  no  longer  able  to  fix  its 
attention  and  its  interests.  Our  brothers, 
our  immediate  descendants,  our  visible 
neighbour,  all  that  but  lately  marked  the 
limit  of  our  sympathies,  are  gradually 
yielding  precedence  to  a  more  inordinate 
and  loftier  being.  We  are  almost  nothing; 

339 


The  Double    Garden 

but  the  species  to  which  we  belong  occupies 
a  place  that  can  be  recognized  in  the  bound- 
less ocean  of  life.  Though  we  no  longer 
count,  the  humanity  of  which  we  form  a 
part  is  acquiring  the  importance  of  which  we 
are  being  stripped.  This  feeling,  which  is 
only  beginning  to  make  its  way  in  the  accus- 
tomed atmosphere  of  our  thoughts  and  of 
our  unconsciousness,  is  already  fashioning 
our  morality  and  is  doubtless  preparing  rev- 
olutions as  great  as  those  wrought  in  it  by 
the  most  subversive  religions.  It  will  gradu- 
ally displace  the  centre  of  most  of  our  vir- 
tues and  vices.  It  will  substitute  for  an 
illusory  and  individual  ideal  a  disinterested, 
unlimited  and  yet  tangible  ideal,  of  which 
it  is  not  yet  possible  to  foresee  the  conse- 
quences and  the  laws.  But,  whatever  these 
may  be,  we  can  state  even  now  that  they 
will  be  even  more  general  and  more  decisive 
than  any  of  those  which  preceded  them  in 
the  superior  and,  so  to  speak,  astral  history 
340 


The  Leaf  of  Olive 

of  mankind.  In  any  case,  it  can  hardly  be 
denied  that  the  object  of  this  ideal  is  more 
lasting  and,  above  all,  more  certain  than 
the  best  of  those  which  lightened  our  dark- 
ness before  it,  since  it  coalesces  on  more 
than  one  point  with  the  object  of  the  uni- 
verse itself. 


XI 


And  we  arc  just  at  the  moment  when  a 
thousand  new  reasons  for  having  confidence 
in  the  destinies  of  our  kind  are  being  born 
around  us.  For  hundreds  and  hundreds  of 
centuries  we  have  occupied  this  earth;  and 
the  greatest  dangers  seem  past.  They  were 
so  threatening  that  we  have  escaped  them 
only  by  a  chance  that  cannot  occur  more 
than  once  in  a  thousand  times  in  the  history 
of  the  worlds.  The  earth,  still  too  young, 
was  poising  its  continents,  its  islands  and 
its  seas  before  fixing  them.  The  central 
341 


The  Double    Garden 

fire,  the  first  master  of  the  planet,  was  at 
every  moment  bursting  from  its  granite 
prison;  and  the  globe,  hesitating  in  space, 
wandered  among  greedy  and  hostile  stars 
ignorant  of  their  laws.  Our  undetermined 
faculties  floated  blindly  in  our  bodies,  like 
the  nebulae  in  the  ether;  a  mere  nothing 
could  have  destroyed  our  human  future  at 
the  groping  hours  when  our  brain  was 
forming  itself,  when  the  network  of  our 
nerves  was  branching  out.  To-day,  the 
instability  of  the  seas  and  the  uprisings  of 
the  central  fire  are  infinitely  less  to  be 
feared;  in  any  case,  it  is  unlikely  that  they 
will  bring  about  any  more  universal  catas- 
trophes. As  for  the  third  peril,  collision 
with  a  stray  star,  we  may  be  permitted  to 
believe  that  we  shall  be  granted  the  few 
centuries  of  respite  necessary  for  us  to  learn 
how  to  ward  it  off.  When  we  see  what  we 
have  done  and  what  we  are  on  the  point 
of  doing,  it  is  not  absurd  to  hope  that  one 

J42 


The  Leaf  of  Olive 

day  we  shall  lay  hold  of  that  essential 
secret  of  the  worlds  which,  for  the  time 
being  and  to  soothe  our  ignorance  (even 
as  we  soothe  a  child  and  lull  it  to  sleep  by 
repeating  to  it  meaningless  and  monotonous 
words),  we  have  called  the  law  of  gravita- 
tion. There  is  nothing  mad  in  supposing 
that  the  secret  of  this  sovereign  force  lies 
hidden  within  us,  or  around  us,  within  reach 
of  our  hand.  It  is  perhaps  tractable  and 
docile,  even  as  light  and  electricity;  it  is 
perhaps  wholly  spiritual  and  depends  upon 
a  very  simple  cause  which  the  displacing  of 
an  object  may  reveal  to  us.  The  discovery 
of  an  unexpected  property  of  matter,  analo- 
gous to  that  which  has  just  disclosed  to 
us  the  disconcerting  qualities  of  radium, 
may  lead  us  straight  to  the  very  sources  of 
the  energy  and  the  life  of  the  stars;  and 
from  that  moment  man's  lot  would  be 
changed  and  the  earth,  definitively  saved, 
would  become  eternal.  It  would,  at  our 
343 


The  Double    Garden 

pleasure,  draw  closer  to  or  further  from 
the  centres  of  heat  and  light,  it  would  flee 
from  worn-out  suns  and  go  in  search  of 
unsuspected  fluids,  forces  and  lives  in  the 
orbit  of  virgin  and  inexhaustible  worlds. 

XII 

I  grant  that  all  this  is  full  of  questionable 
hopes  and  that  it  would  be  almost  as  rea- 
sonable to  despair  of  the  destinies  of  man. 
But,  already,  it  is  much  that  the  choice 
remains  possible  and  that,  hitherto,  nothing 
has  been  decided  against  us.  Every  hour 
that  passes  increases  our  chances  of  holding 
out  and  conquering.  It  may  be  said,  I 
know,  that,  from  the  point  of  view  of 
beauty,  enjoyment  and  the  harmonious 
understanding  of  life,  some  nations — the 
Greeks  and  the  Romans  of  the  commence- 
ment of  the  Empire,  for  instance — were 
superior  to  ourselves.  The  fact  none  the 
M4 


The  Leaf  of  Olive 

less  remains  that  the  sum  total  of  civiliza- 
tion spread  over  our  globe  was  never  to 
be  compared  with  that  of  to-day.  An  extra- 
ordinary civilization,  such  as  that  of  Athens, 
Rome  or  Alexandria,  formed  but  a  lumi- 
nous islet  which  was  threatened  on  every 
side  and  which  ended  by  being  swallowed 
up  by  the  savage  ocean  that  surrounded  it. 
Nowadays — apart  from  the  Yellow  Peril, 
which  does  not  seem  serious — it  is  no  longer 
possible  for  a  barbarian  invasion  to  make 
us  lose  in  a  few  days  our  essential  conquests. 
The  barbarians  can  no  longer  come  from 
without:  they  would  issue  from  our  fields 
and  our  cities,  from  the  shallow  waters  of 
our  own  life;  they  would  be  saturated  with 
the  civilization  which  they  would  lay  claim 
to  destroy ;  and  it  is  only  by  making  use  of 
its  conquests  that  they  would  succeed  in 
depriving  us  of  its  fruits.  There  would, 
therefore,  at  the  worst,  be  but  a  halt,  fol- 
lowed by  a  redistribution  of  riches. 
345 


The  Double    Garden 

Since  we  have  a  choice  of  two  interpre- 
tations, forming  a  background  of  light  or 
of  shade  for  our  existence,  it  would  be 
unwise  to  hesitate.  Even  in  the  most  trivial 
circumstances  ...  of  life,  our  ignorance 
very  often  offers  us  only  a  choice  of  the 
same  kind,  and  one  which  does  not  impose 
itself  more  strongly.  Optimism  thus  under- 
stood is  in  no  way  devout  or  childish;  it 
does  not  rejoice  stupidly  like  a  peasant 
leaving  the  inn;  but  it  strikes  a  balance 
between  what  has  taken  and  what  can  take 
place,  between  hopes  and  fears,  and,  if  the 
last  be  not  heavy  enough,  it  throws  in  the 
weight  of  life. 

For  the  rest,  this  choice  is  not  even  neces- 
sary: it  is  enough  that  we  should  feel 
conscious  of  the  greatness  of  our  expecta- 
tion. For  we  are  in  the  magnificent  state 
in  which  Michael  Angelo  painted  the 
prophets  and  the  just  men  of  the  Old 
Testament,  on  that  prodigious  ceiling  of 
346 


The  Leaf  of  Olive 

the  Sistine  Chapel:  we  are  living  in  expec- 
tation and  perhaps  in  the  last  moments  of 
expectation.  Expectation,  in  fact,  has 
degrees  which  begin  with  a  sort  of  vague 
resignation  and  which  do  not  yet  hope  for 
the  thrill  aroused  by  the  nearest  movements 
of  the  expected  object.  It  seems  as  though 
we  heard  those  movements:  the  sound  of 
superhuman  footsteps,  an  enormous  door 
opening,  a  breath  caressing  us,  or  light 
coming;  we  do  not  know;  but  expectation 
at  this  pitch  is  an  ardent  and  marvellous 
state  of  life,  the  fairest  period  of  happiness, 
its  youth,  its  childhood.     .     . 

I  repeat,  we  never  had  so  many  good 
reasons  for  hope.  Let  us  cherish  them. 
Our  predecessors  were  sustained  by  slighter 
reasons  when  they  did  the  great  things  that 
have  remained  for  us  the  best  evidence  of 
the  destinies  of  mankind.  They  had  confi- 
dence when  they  found  none  but  unreason- 
able reasons  for  having  it.  To-day,  when 
W 


The  Double    Garden 

some  of  those  reasons  really  spring  from 
reason,  it  would  be  wrong  to  show  less 
courage  than  did  those  who  derived  theirs 
from  the  very  circumstances  whence  we 
derive  only  our  discouragements. 

We  no  longer  believe  that  this  world  is  as 
the  apple  of  the  eye  of  one  God  who  is  alive 
to  our  slightest  thoughts;  but  we  know  that 
it  is  subjected  to  forces  quite  as  powerful, 
quite  as  alive  to  laws  and  duties  which  it 
behoves  us  to  penetrate.  That  is  why  our 
attitude  in  the  face  of  the  mystery  of  these 
forces  has  changed.  It  is  no  longer  one  of 
fear,  but  one  of  boldness.  It  no  longer 
demands  that  the  slave  shall  kneel  before 
the  master  or  the  creator,  but  permits  a 
gaze  as  between  equals,  for  we  bear  within 
ourselves  the  equal  of  the  deepest  and 
greatest  mysteries. 

THE   END. 
148 


DATE  DUE 

-.     c 

EC  12  '.975 

irj  ^  «   i^7fi 

KtCD   J 

JW 

CAVLORO 

PRINTED  IN  U.S.A. 

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